Decoding Decisions Marketing in The Messy Middle DclfruV

Marketing in
the messy middle

Part 2 of the Decoding Decisions series
CONTENTS
Authors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 04
Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 06
Revisiting the messy middle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 08
New developments in the messy middle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Chapter
1 Observing the messy middle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
The evolution of information foraging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
The evolution of search behaviours. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
From foraging to searching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Chapter summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Chapter
2 Searching the messy middle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Evolving from theory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Experimenting with Search Ads. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Search Ads: Supercharged . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Implications for Search. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Chapter summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Chapter
3 Boosting confidence in the messy middle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
From information needs to product knowledge. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Different building blocks for different categories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Getting stuck in the messy middle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Building confidence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Boosting confidence and boosting sales. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Chapter summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Chapter
4 Shopping in the messy middle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Retailers, products, and pricing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Retailer vs. product. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Behavioural science vs. price. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
A quick look at: Retail realities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Full-spectrum retail. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
D2C or not D2C?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Chapter summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Ensure brand presence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Close the gap between trigger and purchase. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Employ behavioural science creatively and responsibly. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Appendix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Behavioural science glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Let’s get ready to bundle (or unbundle). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
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CONTENTS
AUTHORS
Google
Jonny Protheroe
Head of Market Insights EMEA, Google
Jonny leads Google’s Market Insights team supporting Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. He is a regular
speaker on evolving consumer behaviour, cross media measurement, and marketing effectiveness. He
represents Google in a range of forums in the marketing and research industries.
Sarah Ashley
Market Insights EMEA, Google
Sarah has a decade of experience leading insights programs at Google and in agencies. From in-depth
studies on media viewing habits, to launching award-winning products, she is passionate about
understanding human behaviour to drive business decisions.
Pablo Pérez
Pablo researches retailing using a combination of big data, industry knowledge, and deep human
understanding . Prior to joining Google, he spent 10 years as insights manager at P&G. He speaks
regularly on national and international research forums and is the author of YOsumidor.
Emily Allen
Throughout her various roles at Google, Emily has conducted research in over 20 markets globally.
She has presented insights and advised on marketing strategy for Google’s top customers, from
practitioners to CEOs, at over a dozen events on stages throughout Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
Tamara Bos
Tamara has helped businesses better understand the consumer journey through a variety of projects,
including the role that YouTube can play. With experience in research from across Europe, the Middle
East, and Africa, she always tries to understand the similarities and differences in shopper behaviour,
within a local context.
Debadeep Bandyopadhyay
As a research analyst, Debadeep works on finding new and exciting consumer insights from Google
Search data for over 25countries across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. He has published over 25
Think with Google articles and contributed to several market research papers about consumer behaviour.
CONTENTS
AUTHORS
The Behavioural Architects

The Behavioural Architects are an award-winning global insight, research, and strategic consultancy.
Their work is underpinned by the latest thinking from the behavioural sciences which they leverage to
help organisations better understand and influence consumer behaviour. They apply behavioural inspired
frameworks and methods to help address key strategic marketing and social challenges.
Sian Davies
Founder, The Behavioural Architects
Sian is global co-founder of The Behavioural Architects and has over 30 years’ experience in market
research and strategic consulting. Over the past 12 years, Sian has pioneered the application of
behavioural science insights in both qualitative and quantitative research methods.
Dipesh Mistry
Associate Director, The Behavioural Architects
Dipesh has close to a decade’s experience in research, which has centred around applying his strong
academic background to the commercial research sector. Dipesh’s career has centred around creating
innovative methods to address a range of behavioural questions.
CONTENTS
Introduction
In 2020 we published a piece of research called Decoding Decisions:

Making sense of the messy middle that helped explain how shoppers
navigate the complexity of the web — or the “messy middle” as we
called it. We started out by exploring “internet street”: online shopping
reimagined as a digital high street, with every storefront, every product,
and every point of view and opinion immediately at your fingertips.
Over the course of detailed literature reviews and simulated shopping
experiments, we became more familiar with the behavioural science
underlying our decision-making, eventually proposing a model formed
around two closely related loops: exploration — an expansive mindset;
and evaluation — a reductive mindset.
The reason for grounding our research in behavioural science was simple:
people were foraging for information long before the internet existed,
and long before there were streets. Many of the mental shortcuts our
ancestors used when searching for their next reliable source of food turn
out to be the same as those we now apply when figuring out where to buy
our next pair of trainers. Abundant choice and limitless information have
made both physical and digital environments “messier”, but the cognitive
tools we use to navigate them have endured.
CONTENTS
07 INTRODUCTION
Since publication, we’ve received a lot of encouraging feedback from

marketers and a lot of follow-up questions. In particular, people want to
know how to apply behavioural science in their real-world campaigns
and properties. Brands want to understand more about how media and
technology can help them show up across all the touchpoints of the
messy middle, how behavioural science can inform their content and
creative, and how product and retailer brands interact. And they also
want to know how these insights can be put to work at scale, so that every
customer interaction is enriched and improved by an appreciation of how
and why people make the purchase decisions they do.
To answer these questions — and more — we set about simulating

three specific environments: Search, content, and online points of sale.
We chose these three spaces because they represent places where
marketers have a significant degree of control, and therefore the ability to
experiment, iterate, and try new things.
Search Content Point of sale
As in our original research, our insights are derived from a combination

of literature reviews, observational studies, and rigorous survey-based
experiments. And once again, we’ve partnered with behavioural science
experts The Behavioural Architects to validate and inform our work.
If you’re already familiar with our original research, you can skip
to the next chapter. But if you’re new to the messy middle,
you can find a quick recap below.
CONTENTS
08 INTRODUCTION
Revisiting the messy middle
The messy middle is a complicated place. An environment of abundant

choice and limitless information. And it’s getting more complex every year
as people are introduced to new modes of communication, new means of
finding information, new forms of entertainment and expression, and — of
course — new products and services to buy and new ways to buy them.
Shoppers are pretty complicated too. What they want can be a moving
target, with intent to buy one product often ending with the purchase of
something completely different. And all of this is governed by motivations
that are hard to explore without the conscious mind inventing post-
rationalisations.
In our model, the messy middle sits between the twin poles of trigger and
purchase, and against a backdrop of exposure which represents all of
the existing perceptions and feelings a shopper has about the brands,
retailers, and products in a category.
CONTENTS
9 INTRODUCTION
We codified the messy middle as two looping mindsets: exploration and

evaluation. Shoppers can cycle between these mindsets as many times
as they need or want, exploring available products and brands before
evaluating the suitability of a smaller set of choices.
If none of those products or offers turns out to be quite right, they simply
seek more information and options. And if a purchase is habitual or
impulsive, they might skip the messy middle altogether. Finally, once a
decision and purchase is made, the shopper’s subsequent experience
with the product and brand becomes part of their background exposure,
ready for the cycle to start again.
We identified a set of mental shortcuts and rules of thumb that people

typically employ while moving through the messy middle. In the course
of validating these findings we ran observational studies and simulated
shopping experiments across multiple categories in over 20 countries
across the globe. This process revealed a powerful set of common
principles that illuminate how shoppers navigate the tangled web
between trigger and purchase before ultimately deciding what to buy.
Inspired by our research, we ultimately recommended three key

strategies for marketers operating in the messy middle:
1 2 3
Ensure brand Close the Employ
presence gap between behavioural
trigger and science
purchase creatively and
responsibly
CONTENTS
10 INTRODUCTION
New developments in the messy middle
In times of economic uncertainty, consumers are forced to do more with

less, to search harder for value, and be more vigilant with the household
budget. And marketers now face a similar challenge, often working under
budget pressures while being tasked with improving (and proving) ROI
to deliver profitable growth. In this context, understanding more about
how people make decisions could offer a critical competitive advantage.
Our insights are equally applicable to established and challenger brands,
equipping marketers with ideas and inspiration so they can help shoppers
navigate and exit the messy middle. And in the process make their brand
and product more likely to be chosen.
A new generation of advertising tools and solutions, an increasing

number of them powered by artificial intelligence (AI), promise to
make implementation and scaling much easier. In the context of digital
marketing, AI will allow brands to anticipate individual consumer needs,
enabling them to better connect new customers with relevant content,
across channels, and in real time. But it’s important to remember that
while AI will be an invaluable partner, it isn’t a replacement for marketers’
knowledge and experience. What will continue to set great marketing
apart is the human ingenuity, insight, and intelligence behind it.
This new report focuses once more on insights into the messy middle of
purchase decision-making: the space between trigger and purchase.
This may make it a richer source of insight for the performance marketer
than the brand marketer. But that isn’t to suggest that brands aren’t
crucially important to decision-making. Our research shows that leading
brands are able to retain a meaningful share of consumer preference
even when real-world or invented competitor brands offer vastly superior
propositions. In other words, brand continues to be one of the strongest
heuristics impacting consumer choice.
CONTENTS
11 INTRODUCTION
There are many routes through the messy middle and each one is
different. But while the combination of exposure, trigger, and path is
unique to each shopper, our research shows that there are important
commonalities in how people search for information, assess competing
propositions, build confidence about a product, and ultimately choose
where they are going to make a purchase.
The role of marketing in the messy middle then becomes a story about
reaching people where they are and boosting their confidence. It’s
about being present and having broad coverage to maximise customer
connections across as many relevant opportunities as possible, using
creativity to build brilliant assets that help close the gap between trigger
and purchase, and crafting compelling propositions that influence the
products consumers choose to buy and where they buy them.
In our original report we introduced the notion of “supercharging”,

by which we meant boosting a proposition with insights derived
from behavioural science. In this report, we illustrate that by also
“supercharging” their Search results, their owned content, and their
presence at points of sale (the places consumers make purchases),
marketers can improve ROI and growth, and make a strong case for
increased investment.
CONTENTS
1 Observing the
messy middle
The exploration and evaluation loops of the messy middle are

fundamentally about how people discover and digest information.
But they constitute very different mindsets. In our original research we
described exploration as an expansive activity, adding brands, products,
and category information to our mental portfolios. Evaluation, on the
other hand, is about narrowing down until we have a small enough set of
options to make a decision.
The evolution of information foraging
Anthropologists have applied the idea of “information foraging”

to explain how people typically handle the challenge of finding
information online.
CHAPTER 1 CONTENTS
SUMMARY
O B S E R V I N G T H E M E S SY M I D D L E
13 CHAPTER 1
From optimal foraging theory …

Information-foraging theory1 is inspired by optimal foraging theory,
developed in the 1970s, which describes how animals look for food
by quickly assessing physical locations known as “patches” for their
potential to provide sustenance. Cues, such as scent, are used to gauge
the quality of a given patch. And if that location doesn’t seem like it will
provide a good return on their energy expenditure, the animal moves on
to the next one.
… to information-foraging theory
People use a strikingly similar technique when foraging for information.
The information patches we explore might not be physical spaces,
but we look for cues and signals in the same way. Search results,
digital ads, social content, and website copy are all types of information
patches. We quickly assess them for the amount of information we’re
likely to gain, and if we don’t like the “scent” of a given patch, we’ll carry
on and look for another.
The information-foraging techniques we rely on have to account for a

rapidly evolving information environment. Before the internet, information
was limited and mostly local. We could ask for advice about what to buy
from friends and family, from sales reps if we visited a physical store
or picked up the phone, and possibly from media such as television
and newspapers (but only if we were lucky and happened to see an ad
relevant to our needs at that moment in time). The range of sources was
so much smaller, and there was beauty in this simplicity.
1 Pirolli, P., & Card, S. (1995, May). Information foraging in information access environments. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on
CHAPTER 1 CONTENTS
Human factors in computing systems (pp. 51-58).
SUMMARY
14 CHAPTER 1
Some of that beauty derived from how much easier it was to make a
decision. With a limited set of options and sources, it was sometimes
possible to look at everything. This sense of examining a problem
from all angles instilled confidence, so that when a choice was made,
it was with the reassurance that we’d done the best we could with the
information at hand.
An explosion in product choice and

information has made it harder to feel
confident about making the right decision
Contrast that with today’s world of superabundant information. It’s
now a genuine challenge to exhaust all sources of information for even
the simplest products. For those of us hunting for the absolute “best”
choice, as opposed to something just “good enough”, there is always one
more expert review, one more page of customer comments, one more
combination of search keywords that could potentially confirm a bargain
or save us from wasting time and money on an inferior item.
And then there’s the explosion in product choice, with many categories
on popular online stores offering literally thousands of options. Where
we once entered a physical retailer with a limited consideration set of
products and a limited set of brand perceptions, in some categories we
now have seemingly endless choice and information. For many kinds
of purchases, it has become much harder to feel confident that we’re
making the right decision.
Confidence turns out to be a crucial factor in successfully navigating

the messy middle, and we’ll return to it in depth in Chapter 4. But
for now we’re going to focus on the tools people use to navigate
the information landscape.
CHAPTER 1 CONTENTS
SUMMARY
15 CHAPTER 1
The evolution of search behaviours
In addition to their increasing abundance, information patches in the

messy middle also tend to change more rapidly than their physical
counterparts. Our original research was inspired in part by a simple
observation: the number of options and the amount of information people
have when choosing what to buy has increased dramatically. In turn, this
makes the business of buying something more complicated than it used
to be. And that observation started with an insight from Google Search.
The internet is going from a place where

people compare prices to one where
they compare everything
In the U.K., search interest2 for “best” has increased over time, while
search interest for “cheap” has declined, with the trend lines crossing in
2008. The previous leader, “cheap” describes a simple characteristic that
is easily measured; “best”, on the other hand, is nebulous and requires a
lot more information to define. We hypothesised that the transition from
one word to the other was symptomatic of the internet going from a place
where people compare prices to one where they compare everything.
2 To measure search interest over time for a topic, Google Trends looks at the proportion of searches for that term to all searches on
CHAPTER 1 CONTENTS
Google at that time and location.
SUMMARY
16 CHAPTER 1
FIGURE 01
In the U.K., search interest for queries containing “cheap” and

“best” has been trending in opposite directions3
cheap best
Search term Search term
100
80
60
40
20
0
2004 2013 2023
The terms “best” and “cheap” are examples of modifiers — words that
add nuance or precision to a query. In our original research we looked at
long-term trends of modifiers such as “best”, “cheap”, “reviews”,
“ideas”, and “deals” across categories. But the transformation of
modifiers can also reveal how the messy middle is evolving within a
category, showing us that over time searches in many categories have
become more nuanced, precise, and personal.
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3 Google Trends, United Kingdom, Search interest for queries containing “best” and “cheap”, January 2004 - July 2023.
SUMMARY
17 CHAPTER 1
Let’s use two examples from the fashion category for illustration. First
we have U.K. search queries related to the term “wedding dresses”. Over
time, these queries reflect more specificity about the product the user
is seeking, for example the colour and style, but also more nuance about
who the dress is actually for.
FIGURE 02
In the U.K., popular search queries related to the term

“wedding dresses” show increasing specificity over time4
2016 dresses
wedding dresses
2019 wedding guest dresses
princess wedding dress
wedding dress london
2022 wedding guest outfits for over 50s
floaty dress for wedding guest
long sleeve dress for wedding guest
teal dress for wedding
Secondly, Search can help us understand how a category is

maturing and evolving in the face of a broader macro trend — in this
case the intersection of the fashion category with rising interest and
expectations relating to sustainability. In the U.K., searches in the apparel
category related to the term “sustainable” demonstrate a burgeoning
sophistication, as users progress from exploring the concept to adding
brands, subcategories, and value-based modifiers to their queries.
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4 Google Trends, United Kingdom, Popular search queries about the topic “dress”, January 2016 - July 2023.
SUMMARY
18 CHAPTER 1
FIGURE 03
In the apparel category in the U.K., queries related to the term

“sustainable” can help us understand how the category is evolving5
Fashion 2017 sustainable clothing

mentioned sustainable fashion
Brands start 2018 sustainable clothing

to appear sustainable shoes
sustainable clothing UK
sustainable clothing brands
sustainable swimwear
[leading sportswear brand] sustainability
Diverse 2021 sustainable brands

demands sustainable clothing brands
emerge
sustainable swimwear
sustainable jeans
sustainable dresses [leading clothing brand]
More specific 2022 sustainable development goals

modifiers [unisex clothing brand]
emerge
affordable sustainable clothing
best sustainable clothing brands
Note: The years featured were selected to show a noticeable change in consumer queries compared to previous years.
CHAPTER 1 CONTENTS
5 Google Trends, United Kingdom, Popular search queries containing “sustainability” in the Fashion category, January 2015 - July 2023.
SUMMARY
19 CHAPTER 1
Shifting trends in Google Search show

that consumer demand is a moving
target — and marketers need to be able
to respond in real time
While category demand (and therefore searches) will evolve over time
in ways that reflect broader cultural and social trends, the COVID-19
pandemic created more radical shifts. To give an example, consider the
search terms “dog friendly” and “hot tub” in the U.K. For years, these
two queries marched hand-in-hand, matching both short- and long-term
trends almost exactly. Then, for the two years of the pandemic, they
parted ways.
FIGURE 04
How searches in a category can evolve to reflect broader cultural and societal trends6
dog friendly hot tub
100
80
60
40
20
0
2013 2017 2022
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6 Google Trends, United Kingdom, Search interest for queries containing “hot tub” and “dog friendly”, January 2013 - July 2023.
SUMMARY
20 CHAPTER 1
Before 2020, these two terms were often used by people planning
holidays. Some wanted to know if their destination hotel had a hot tub
and some wanted to know if it would accommodate canine guests. But
when pandemic-related travel restrictions put holiday plans on hold, one
term sank while the other soared. U.K. search interest for “hot tubs” rose
to its highest level to date, as more people explored getting one for their
own home. In doing so they caused the term to somewhat shift category
from travel to home and garden. Once restrictions were lifted “hot tubs”
shifted back towards the travel category and the two terms returned to
their pre-pandemic correlational relationship.
In fact, the pandemic inspired short-term fluctuations in several

categories. At the start of lockdown, U.K. search interest for “can you
freeze” suddenly spiked as people began to respond to anxieties about
food availability. While the spike was short-lived, it was followed by a
larger than usual seasonal increase in search interest for “fridge freezer”
over the summer months. For anyone playing close attention at the time,
the spike may have represented an opportunity for brands to
meet consumer information needs, or hinted at the category interest
that followed.
FIGURE 05
Words commonly paired with the search term “can you freeze” in
the U.K. during the COVID-19 pandemic7
yeast
banana bread salmon

brussel sprouts mac and cheese
can you freeze...

donuts mozzarella cheese
bagels
gnocchi
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7 Google Trends, United Kingdom, Popular additions to queries containing “can you freeze”, January 2020 - December 2021.
SUMMARY
21 CHAPTER 1
FIGURE 06
During the COVID-19 pandemic, U.K. search interest for

“can you freeze” peaked in the early months of the first lockdown8
can you freeze fridge freezer
100
80
60
40
20
0
Feb. 2020 March 2020 April 2020 May 2020 June 2020 July 2020
These examples demonstrate that consumer demand, as expressed

through Search, is a moving target. Over time, people are getting better at
searching for what they want, and are more confident that highly specific
queries will return relevant results. Brands are improving too, appearing
in the right places with relevant messaging and content. But marketers
still need to keep an eye on evolving trends and invest in tools that enable
them to respond in real time whenever these unpredictable pockets
of demand appear. Again, this is an area where AI promises to help by
enabling marketers to make confident decisions driven by predictive data.
CHAPTER 1 CONTENTS
8 Google Trends, United Kingdom, Search interest for queries containing “can you freeze” and “fridge freezer”, January 2020 - July 2020.
SUMMARY
22 CHAPTER 1
From foraging to searching
Humans are creatures of habit. Once an information patch demonstrates

a high degree of reliability, we’ll return to it often. In fact, the way we
engage with it may evolve and become more sophisticated as our
familiarity increases.
People are complicated and the way we search for information on

the internet is complicated. No two people are the same, and no
two instances of decision-making are the same. And with the ever-
accelerating rate of change as a multiplying factor, it’s reasonable
to ask: how can marketers hope to keep up with so many different
needs and such a high degree of uncertainty?
In the next chapter we’re going to take a closer look at how marketers
can use behavioural science to stand out in a fast-moving information
landscape.
CHAPTER 1 CONTENTS
SUMMARY
23 CHAPTER 1
1Chapter summary
The ways that people explore and evaluate information online

mirrors the ways that animals forage for food. Both involve
looking for cues and signals that quickly make clear whether
a location is likely to contain what they’re looking for.
The techniques used in foraging for information have evolved

in line with a rapidly shifting and evolving Search environment.
People are looking for more nuanced and specific information
about the products they’re thinking of purchasing, and this is
reflected in the growing complexity of their search queries.
Marketers need to keep an eye on evolving trends and invest

in tools that enable them to respond in real time, whenever
unpredictable pockets of demand appear.
CONTENTS
2 Searching the
messy middle
In the previous chapter we introduced a concept from academic

literature: information-foraging theory. A key consideration in the theory
is efficiency: people prefer ”patches” that provide the largest amount
of relevant information for the least amount of time and effort.
Over the past 25 years, Google Search has become a familiar starting
point for many information-dependent activities, including online
shopping. The popularity of Search presents marketers with an
opportunity to connect with billions of consumers at the precise
moment when a want or need solidifies into a query. That in turn
presents consumers with the opportunity to quickly review product
propositions from multiple brands in one place.
In our original shopping experiments, we saw how the application

of behavioural science helped participants explore and evaluate
the information contained in different product propositions. Since
the components of a well-crafted Search ad convey similar details
about brand and offer, we decided to explore a related question:
can behavioural science make a difference within the specific
parameters of Search advertising?
CHAPTER 2 CONTENTS
SUMMARY
S E A R C H I N G T H E M E S SY M I D D L E
25 CHAPTER 2
Evolving from theory
The shopping experiments conducted for our original research measured

how various behavioural science principles affected shopper preference.
There are hundreds of potentially applicable principles that could be
used to benefit consumer decision-making, but our literature review and
shopper observations highlighted six that had significant potential to
influence across both exploration and evaluation.
Tip: Every time we introduce a new behavioural principle we’ll provide a

brief description of what it means. For a full definition of all the principles
we reference in our research, visit the Behavioural science glossary at the
end of the report.
CHAPTER 2 CONTENTS
SUMMARY
26 CHAPTER 2
F I G U R E 07
Six key behavioural principles often associated with consumer

decision-making in the messy middle
Hotel Brand
Certificate of excellence
from [travel review company] 1,200 reviews
Free room upgrade All-inclusive
Only two spaces Book now to get

remaining the best deal
Authority bias: the tendency to attribute greater Social proof: the tendency to follow the
accuracy and knowledge to the opinion of a perceived opinion, advice, and behaviour of others in
authority figure, unrelated to its content, and be more one’s own decision-making.
Authority bias
influenced by that opinion. Power of free Scarcity bias
The tendency to alter our opinions That demand for a product or Based on the economic
or behaviours to match those of service is significantly greater at a principle that time-, quantity-,
someone we consider to be an price of exactly zero compared to a or access-limited resources
authority on a subject price even slightly greater than zero are more desirable
Power of free: the tendency to overvalue free Category heuristics: shortcuts or rules
products. It assumes that when a product becomes of thumb that aid us in making a quick and
free, its intrinsic value for consumers increases. satisfactory decision within a given category.
Social proof Category heuristics Power of now

The tendency
Scarcity to copy
bias: based onthe
the economic Shortcuts or rules of thumb
Power That humans
of now: the tendency are wired
to focus to live in
on today
behaviour and actions of that aid us in making a quick the present so we tend to want
p rinciple
other that
people in time-, quantity-,
situations of o
r and satisfactory decision
rather than
withinthink about whatnow
things tomorrow might
rather than later
access-limited
ambiguity resources a
re more desirable. a given category
or uncertainty bring. We discount the future in favour of today.
CHAPTER 2 CONTENTS
SUMMARY
27 CHAPTER 2
Through those original survey-based experiments, we demonstrated

across a range of categories that shoppers would be willing to shift
away from their first-choice brand to a second-choice brand — if that
second-choice brand made a compelling marketing case based on
responsible use of the six behavioural principles. And when maximal
expressions of those principles were put in place (think five-star ratings
and third-party endorsements), a significant number of shoppers across
every category switched not just from a preferred household-name brand
to their second-choice brand, but to an invented brand we created purely
for the experiment.
FIGURE 08
In the U.K., a significant number of shoppers will switch from their

first-choice brand to an invented brand that’s been “supercharged”
with the six key behavioural principles9
First-choice brand Supercharged invented brand
100
28%
43%
44%
48%
49%
50%
50%
50%
51%
53%
60%
60%
62%
63%
63%
63%
63%
64%
65%
71%
73%
73%
75%
75%
76%
78%
79%
79%
82%
86%
87%
80
72%
60
57%
56%
52%
51%
51%
50%
50%
49%
47%
40
40%
40%
38%
37%
37%
37%
37%
36%
35%
30%
27%
27%
20
25%
25%
25%
22%
21%
21%
18%
14%
13%
0
Cereal
Car
Whisky
Flights (long haul)
Detergent
Smartphone
Face moisturiser
Mobile network provider
Cat food
Clothing
Children’s toy
Laptop
Cinema
Shampoo
TV
Fitted kitchen
Mortgage
Power drill
Flights (short haul)
Make-up
Energy provider
Broadband provider
Package holiday
Credit card
Car hire
Hotel
Sofa
ISA
Bathroom suite
Mountain bike
Car insurance
Note: The eagle-eyed among you may notice that some of the bars don’t add to exactly
100% —don’tworry, it’s not an error, but due to rounding to whole numbers.
CHAPTER 2 CONTENTS
9 Google/The Behavioural Architects, U.K., Decoding Decisions: Making sense of the messy middle, N=31,000 in market online shoppers, 2019.
SUMMARY
28 CHAPTER 2
Experimenting with Search Ads
Unlike the side-by-side comparison format we used for our original

research, Search Ads have specific requirements and limitations.10
FIGURE 09
In our new research, we introduced ranking into our simulation that

looked like a real Search results page
Original experiment design
Brand 1 Brand 2
Certificate of excellence
Recommended
from [travel review
400 reviews by [travel magazine] 400 reviews
company]
Free room upgrade All-inclusive Free travel insurance Flexible booking
Only 10 spaces Book now to get Book this week

Limited spaces available
remaining the best deal to get the best deal
Experiment design for Google Search environment
hotels
www.firstchoicebrand.com
[First-choice brand] - Hotel

FREE 50 page home style inspiration guide. The travel editor’s favourite. We know we aren’t the cheapest, but our rooms are
proper plush. UK’s favourite for 18-24 yr olds.
Rating: 4.9 200 reviews
www.inventedbrand.com
Package holidays - [Invented brand]

A comfortable stay. The celebrity favourite. Sponsors of [U.K. travel show]. The UK’s favourite.
Rating: 5 1250 reviews
www.secondchoicebrand.com
[Second-choice brand] - Great value, quality hotel

FREE 20 page top holiday destination guide. [Top travel guide]'s favourite. We know our rooms are cosy, but our rates are low.
Honestly, how long will you spend in the room anyway! UK’s favourite for 18-24 yr old couples. Sponsor of of [U.K. travel show].
10 One of those limitations is how many characters advertisers can use. Search Ads have strict character limits, but our experiments sometimes
CHAPTER 2 CONTENTS
exceeded these in headlines and descriptions. This was by design to measure the impact of multiple behavioural science principles.
SUMMARY
29 CHAPTER 2
So for this experiment, while we kept three of the original six principles,
we also added three new ones that could be easily articulated as text or
using specific, opt-in features of Search Ads.
FIGURE 10
Supercharging ad copy can have a positive effect for both established

and challenger brands
1
2
3
hotels
2nd Favourite Brand - Great value quality hotel
FREE 50 page hotel destination guide. [Top travel guide]'s favourite. We Know our rooms are cosy,
but our rates are low. *Honestly how long will you spend in the room anyway!*.
UK’s favourite for 18-24 yr old couples. Sponsor of [top U.K. travel TV show].
Order effect: the difference Costly signalling: signage that Pratfall effect: faults
in response as a result of the conveys information about the or flaws can make products
order in which stimulus is characteristics of the product, more appealing, given that
presented, such as listing the service or brand itself, but imperfection is seen as natural
brand versus benefit first these characteristics must be and more relatable.
in the ad headline. costly for the company in order
to signal wealth, such as
prime-time television slots or
premium sponsorships.
CHAPTER 2 CONTENTS
SUMMARY
30 CHAPTER 2
For example, seller ratings allow advertisers to leverage social proof in the
form of both a star rating and a review count displayed in the ad. Similarly,
leveraging your own first-party data in ad copy could help to personalise
social proof in the form of recommendations specific to different groups
of users. For a full definition of social proof and the other principles
tested in this experiment, visit the Behavioural science glossary at the end
of the report.
Other expressions were chosen not because they map to a specific

feature of Search Ads, but because they lend themselves to a
text-only environment. Authority bias and costly signalling can both
be expressed by quoting endorsements and sponsorships, assuming
a brand can legitimately cite either of these factors. A free gift or
service (think free shipping) is usually easy to articulate, and in the
case of a simple destination guide also relatively easy to produce.
Beyond these textual expressions of our original principles, we wanted
to know if shoppers respond differently depending on whether a brand
or a benefit is mentioned first.
Expressions were chosen not because they

map to a specific feature of Search Ads,
but because they lend themselves to a
text-only environment
Another text-friendly principle we decided to test is the pratfall effect.
This involves deliberately highlighting an imperfection in order to cast
light on an adjacent benefit. In the example above, the hotel’s rooms
are described as cosy — an admission that their square footage is
small. But the ad goes on to emphasise value by reminding travellers
that they’re probably not going to spend much time in the room anyway.
In other words, an apparent imperfection, when framed correctly,
can humanise the brand.
CHAPTER 2 CONTENTS
SUMMARY
31 CHAPTER 2
So while the example above might look like a typical Search Ad, it has
been carefully engineered to include a range of behavioural principles
that we felt were most relevant to text-based ad formats. But did it earn
a greater share of clicks?
Well, as learned in our original research, behavioural science can

have a big impact.
Search Ads: Supercharged
Our Search experiment was mocked up to look and feel like a real Search
results page (though it should be noted that the experiment was not
conducted on the Google Search domain and did not use ads from
existing advertiser campaigns).
Participants were asked to select a first-choice brand and second-

choice brand in each category. They were then shown three Search
Ads featuring their first-choice brand, second-choice brand, and an
invented challenger brand. The ads contained different combinations
and executions of the six behavioural science principles. We asked
participants to choose which of the three they would click on and
measured how often the second-choice brand or invented brand were
chosen. This allowed us to quantify the ability of the selected behavioural
science principles to redirect preference away from the first-choice
brand.
We set up our experiments to explore whether our Google Search

simulations aligned with the findings from our original research:
here’s value in simply showing up when shoppers

T
have a choice to make.
Supercharging with behavioural science can shift

consumer preference.
Even unknown brands can win share in the messy middle

with the right approach.
CHAPTER 2 CONTENTS
SUMMARY
32 CHAPTER 2
Here’s what we found:
Showing up still works

One of the most revealing findings from our original research was that
brands could gain preference share simply by showing up and giving
shoppers a choice to make. Second-choice brands and invented brands
didn’t even have to offer anything different — an identical proposition was
enough to make some shoppers switch allegiance.
To test this effect in Search, we used the findings of our experiment to

simulate the effect of identical propositions in the first and third positions
of the Search results.
FIGURE 11
We can simulate what happened when the first- and second-choice brands were in
first and third position, with identical propositions
hotels
[First-choice brand] - Great value, quality hotel

*proper plush*. UK’s favourite for 18-24 yr olds.
www.stayinnhotels.com
Stay Inn Hotels - Hotel

Presence www.secondchoicebrand.com
of second-choice [Second-choice brand] - Great value, quality hotel
brand in third FREE 20 page home style inspiration guide. The travel editor’s favourite. We know we aren’t the cheapest, but our rooms are
position, with *proper plush*. UK’s favourite for 18-24 yr olds.
identical ad copy Rating: 4.9 200 reviews
CHAPTER 2 CONTENTS
SUMMARY
33 CHAPTER 2
In this hotel example, setting aside the invented brand in second position,
74% of participants would have picked their first-choice brand in first
position, but 26% would have clicked on their second-choice brand down
in third position. The effect was visible across all the categories we tested.
Even with no difference in copy between ads other than the brand, 15%-
34% of participants would have clicked on their second-choice brand
when it was shown in third position.
FIGURE 12
In the U.K., 15-34% of participants across all categories would have

clicked on their second-choice brand when shown with an identical
proposition to their first-choice brand11
First-choice brand Second-choice brand
100
15% 26% 26% 26% 27% 27% 27% 30% 30% 31% 31% 34%
80 85%
74% 74% 74% 73% 73% 73%

70% 70% 69% 69%
60 66%
40
20
0
Smartphone
Hotel
Whisky
Mortgage
Broadband
Clothing
Moisturiser
Holiday
Mascara
TV
SUV
Shampoo
11 Google/The Behavioural Architects, U.K., Decoding Decisions: Supercharging Search Ads in the messy middle,
CHAPTER 2 CONTENTS
N=12,000 in market online shoppers, 2021.
SUMMARY
34 CHAPTER 2
There could be several reasons for this behaviour — for example, people
may be largely ambivalent between their top two brands. Regardless of
the reason, all the second-choice brand needed to do to win share from
the first-choice brand was to show up.
Applying behavioural science can boost across categories

In our original research we introduced the idea of “supercharging”,
where second-choice brands and invented brands were given more
powerful expressions of the tested behavioural science principles (think
1,250 reviews versus 200 reviews) to maximise their ability to win share
of preference. Even with fairly unremarkable applications of behavioural
science, in a simulated environment with little scope for creative
expression, supercharged second-choice brands proved capable of
winning over significant numbers of shoppers.
To test the impact of supercharging on Search Ads we kept the

second-choice brand in third position, but amped up all the behavioural
science expressions.
FIGURE 13
We can simulate what happened when the second-choice brand was in third
position, with supercharged ad copy
hotels

Package holidays - Stay Inn Hotels

Presence of
second-choice
[Second-choice brand] - Great value, quality hotel
brand in third
position, with *Honestly, how long will you spend in the room anyway!* UK’s favourite for 18-24 yr old couples. Sponsor of [top U.K. travel TV show].
supercharged Rating: 5.0 1250 reviews
copy
CHAPTER 2 CONTENTS
SUMMARY
35 CHAPTER 2
When the behavioural science principles were charged to a higher

degree, second-choice brands proved capable of seizing significantly
more preference share away from first-choice brands. Even smartphones,
a category with particularly strong brand loyalty, saw almost a quarter
of people choosing to click an ad for their second-choice brand.
In the hotel category, supercharging lifted second-choice preference
from 26% (share of clicks from just showing up) to 53% — more than
doubling its share. In fact, hotels proved to be the category most
responsive to supercharging with behavioural science.
FIGURE 14
In the U.K., 23-53% of participants would have clicked on their second-choice

brand across all categories when behavioural science principles were charged to a
higher degree12
First-choice brand Supercharged second-choice brand
100
23% 41% 44% 44% 44% 45% 46% 49% 49% 49% 50% 53%
80
77%
60
59%
56% 56% 56% 55% 54%
51% 51% 51% 50%
40 47%
20
0
Smartphone
Whisky
SUV
Broadband
Mortgage
Clothing
Shampoo
Mascara
TV
Holiday
Moisturiser
Hotel
CHAPTER 2 CONTENTS
SUMMARY
36 CHAPTER 2
Supercharging can level up challenger brands

In our original research, we wanted to understand what happens when
a completely new challenger brand enters the market. So we invented
some brands for just that purpose. To measure this effect in Search,
we introduced them again here.
FIGURE 15
The invented brands we created in our original experiments to simulate the impact
of using behavioural science with
The purpose of creating Search Ads for these invented brands was
to simulate the impact of using behavioural science on a new market
entrant: a brand that no one had heard of before, with no previous
associations to cloud their judgement. To give the challengers a slight
leg-up, let’s view the results when the invented brand was in second
position, sandwiched by the first-choice brand in first position and the
second-choice brand in third.
CHAPTER 2 CONTENTS
SUMMARY
37 CHAPTER 2
FIGURE 16
We can simulate what happened when the supercharged invented brand

was placed in second position
hotels

Invented brand
Stay Inn Hotels - Great value, quality hotel
in second position,
with supercharged *Honestly, how long will you spend in the room anyway!* UK’s favourite for 18-24 yr old couples. Sponsor of [top U.K. travel TV show].
copy Rating: 5.0 1250 reviews
[Second-choice brand] - Package holidays

A comfortable stay. The celebrity favourite. Sponsors of [U.K. travel TV show]. The UK’s favourite.
It’s worth noting that in the Search experiment, invented brands had to
rely on names alone to draw shoppers in. Real-world brands, on the other
hand, may have benefited from shoppers’ existing awareness of their
visual identity and any associated emotional response. In other words,
the effects resulted solely from the strength of the invented brands’
textual propositions and the behavioural science being applied.
To return to the example of hotels, a supercharged invented brand was

able to take a 34% share from a non-supercharged first-choice brand.
Bearing in mind the first-choice brand will have enjoyed the benefit of
name recognition, this is an impressive achievement. While they varied
in degree, supercharged invented brands across all categories were able
to take share from first-choice brands.
CHAPTER 2 CONTENTS
SUMMARY
38 CHAPTER 2
FIGURE 17
In the U.K., 14-37% of participants would have clicked on an invented brand when
it was supercharged with powerful expressions of behavioural science13
First-choice brand Supercharged invented brand
100
14% 15% 25% 26% 27% 30% 31% 32% 32% 34% 35% 37%
80 86% 85%
75% 74% 73%
70% 69% 68% 68%
60 66% 65% 63%
40
20
0
Smartphone
Clothing
Shampoo
Holiday
Broadband
Mascara
Whisky
Moisturiser
Hotel
TV
Mortgage
SUV
Implications for Search
There are implications here for both established and challenger brands.
For established brands with turf to defend, supercharging ad copy

with behavioural science can protect hard-won consumer preference
and expensive brand investment. For challenger brands, these results
should be cause for optimism: even if your Ad Rank (including your bid)
doesn’t currently reach first position, a strong proposition and ad copy
supercharged by behavioural science may allow you to compete and win
a greater share of clicks in the messy middle.
CHAPTER 2 CONTENTS
SUMMARY
39 CHAPTER 2
Supercharging ad copy can have a

positive effect for both established and
challenger brands
But attention earned by great ad creative can still be diminished by

poor destination content. In the next chapter we’re going to explore
how behavioural science can be used to build and support confidence
once shoppers begin to engage with your owned media.
Optimising ads with AI

Optimising for an information patch as broad as Search might seem
daunting, but this is luckily one of the areas where generative AI —
AI systems trained to produce new copy, images, and other kinds of
content — is already making a difference. Marketers know their brands
best, and can engage with AI using natural language to write and refine ad
copy infused with behavioural science at scale.
CHAPTER 2 CONTENTS
SUMMARY
40 CHAPTER 2
2Chapter summary
Behavioural science helps us understand how people explore

and evaluate in the messy middle. Marketers can influence
consumer decision-making by responsibly applying these
principles in their propositions and ad copy.
Our research found that by supercharging Search Ads with

compelling expressions of behavioural science, shoppers
across every category switched not just from a preferred
brand to their second-choice brand, but to an invented brand
we created purely for the experiment.
For established brands, supercharging ad copy with

behavioural science can protect brand investment and
maintain your position as a top choice for consumers. For
challenger brands, supercharging your ad copy can help level
the playing field and enable you to win a greater share of clicks.
CONTENTS
3 Boosting confidence
in the messy middle
Once a shopper expresses interest, for many marketers the next logical
question is: how do we boost their purchase consideration? But purchase
consideration is something that matters to marketers, not consumers.
Let’s take ourselves out of a marketing mindset and spend some time
thinking like consumers.
For consumers, confidence is key in making a decision. We want to feel

confident that the choice we’re about to make will address our needs.
That it’s worth the resources we’ve expended getting to that point. That it
will live up to expectations and not waste money. We might even want our
purchase to reflect something positive about ourselves.
In other words, we want to feel confident that the choice we’re making is
the best one, or at least not a poor one.
On the flip side, we might also want to feel confident that we’re avoiding
any possible negative consequences, such as getting into an agreement
for a service that isn’t trustworthy, that might waste our time and money,
or that cannot easily be cancelled.
CHAPTER 3 CONTENTS
SUMMARY
42 CHAPTER 3 B O O S T I N G C O N F I D E N C E I N T H E M E S SY M I D D L E
For consumers, confidence is key in

making a decision — we want to feel
confident that the choice we’re about
to make will address our needs
During our research we explored the degree of confidence shoppers
said they felt about various products. And we discovered that the level of
baseline confidence differs between categories. Across the categories
included in our in-market studies, we found that fitted kitchens were the
product people felt least confident about. This makes intuitive sense, as a
kitchen is an expensive and infrequent purchase that shoppers generally
have to live with for a long time. At the other end of the scale, shoppers
felt most confident about breakfast cereal, an inexpensive, frequently
purchased product with relatively low stakes for making the wrong choice.
FIGURE 18
In the U.K., consumer confidence tends to be higher when

purchase frequency is high or cost of product is low14
Low confidence High confidence
Fitted kitchen Cereal
Note: Grey circles represent the 31 different categories tested in our U.K. survey.
From this we can deduce that consumer confidence tends to be higher when
the permanence of a purchase is low or when the cost of a product is low.
This confidence can reduce the information required to reach a decision by
tapping into existing product understanding and prior experience.
CHAPTER 3 CONTENTS
14 Google/The Behavioural Architects, U.K., n= 600 prospective online purchasers per category, ages 18-75, January 2023.
SUMMARY
We also found that confidence was strongly correlated with knowledge.

Product categories where shoppers said they had a lot of knowledge
tended to be categories where they reported a high degree of
confidence. Bearing in mind what we’d already learned about how people
forage for information, we realised that this was an area where we needed
to dig deeper.
From information needs to product knowledge
Across the twin mindsets of exploration and evaluation, shoppers seek to

address a range of information needs. Some of these are specific to each
mindset, while a small number exist at the intersection of the two.
FIGURE 19
Consumers are looking for specific information needs in both the

exploration and evaluation mindsets of the messy middle
Trigger
o r a ti o Ev a l u ati o n
Expl n
Range of options
Brands and retailers Availability
in category Policies and warranties Delivery terms
Price range Expert guidance Price
Inspiration Product features Payment plan
Contextual category and benefits
Product rating
information
and review
Company ratings
and reviews
Purchase
CHAPTER 3 CONTENTS
SUMMARY
A brand’s owned content plays a particularly important role in providing

information during both exploration and evaluation. Home pages and
product pages engage both mindsets of the messy middle, as shoppers
gain confidence in their understanding of what’s available before
weighing up the suitability of specific products.
When we’re in an When we’re in an

exploration mindset evaluation mindset
… we want to understand … and narrowing down our
the brands and retailers in options, we might be more
the category, what range of interested in things like
products might be available, availability, delivery terms,
and the range of prices on and payment plans. We want
offer, and maybe find some to understand when and how
inspiration. This helps us we are able to get our preferred
understand what is available product or service, and if what
and what we need to keep we’re considering is right
in mind while making our for our needs.
purchase decision.
CHAPTER 3 CONTENTS
SUMMARY
Different building blocks for different categories
At the product level, we found that many information needs were common
across categories. But our research also showed that shoppers prioritise
different kinds of information for different products. For example,
participants indicated that they were much less interested in guidance
from industry experts when searching for information on high-frequency
and low-risk categories, such as cereal, than for higher-stakes products
that are infrequently purchased, like fitted kitchens.
At the same time, shoppers needed less information (they had a lower
information threshold) when shopping for products that they enjoyed,
such as make-up, than when shopping for less enjoyable products, like
broadband. We hypothesised that this might be explained by shoppers
having higher prior knowledge and existing exposure among categories
they enjoy browsing.
Overall, we saw that products perceived as having higher stakes, by virtue

of being more expensive or infrequently bought, seem to have higher
information needs than the other categories. From this we can hypothesise
that people might spend more time gathering information about these
purchases, increasing the amount of time they spend in the messy middle.
We were able to validate these insights further using data from Google
Search in the U.K. For example, when shoppers search within the Air Travel
category they are much more likely to look for pricing information than any
of the other types of need shown in the chart on the next page. Again, this
makes intuitive sense, as for most flights the destination is fixed and the
carriers are to some degree interchangeable — making price the most
pressing variable. In contrast, the Laptop category sees more shoppers
searching for advice in the form of expert opinions and reviews from
other users, which makes sense for a product with many more technical
dimensions to consider.
CHAPTER 3 CONTENTS
SUMMARY
FIGURE 20
In the U.K., popular search modifiers suggest that the information needs of
consumers in the messy middle vary by category15
Inspiration (includes search terms such as “for” + “ideas”)

Offline interactions (includes search terms such as “near me” + “store” + “shop” + “shops” + “stores”)
Online interactions (includes search terms such as “delivery” + “pick up” + “customer service” + “return” + “online” + “app”)
Price (includes search terms such as “cheap” + “price” + “deal” + “discount” + “offer” + “cheapest”)
Review (includes search terms such as “best” + “compare” + “review” + “vs”)
100
Relative search interest
50
Air Travel Grocery and Flowers Apparel Laptops and

Food Retailers Notebooks
All of this information is valuable and shoppers invest a lot of time in

finding, distilling, and digesting it. But you can still have too much of
a good thing. Even with the information-foraging techniques at our
disposal, overabundant information can create barriers that prevent
us from completing — or even starting — a purchase journey. Creating
and maintaining engagement is critical to guiding potential buyers past
these barriers. The beginning of a purchase journey can feel like facing a
mountain of information. And as we’ll see in a moment, depending on the
product, we don’t always have a lot of incentive to climb.
15 Google Trends, United Kingdom, Relative average search interest of terms about various information needs across 12 months. Inspiration
consists of “the queries containing “for” OR “ideas”, Reviews consists of “best” OR “compare” OR “review” OR “vs”, Price consists of
“cheap” OR “cheapest” OR “price” OR “deal” OR “discount” OR “offer”, Offline interactions consists of “near me” OR “shop” OR “shops”
OR “stores” OR “stores” Online interactions consists of “delivery” OR “pick up” OR “customer service” OR “return” OR “online” OR “app”,
CHAPTER 3 CONTENTS
June 2022 – May 2023.
SUMMARY
Getting stuck in the messy middle
In addition to information needs, we identified a range of different

psychological barriers that hamper progress through the messy middle.
Many barriers are subconscious, but this isn’t always the case. Some are
more applicable to the exploration mindset while some are more related
to evaluation. A few are relevant to both.
Something as simple as a perceived lack of time can present a major

barrier depending on how long a decision seems likely to take. Related
to this idea is decision fatigue, which often surfaces in the evaluation
mindset, when shoppers begin to feel weighed down and averse to having
to make yet another decision. And indecisiveness often manifests when
the shopper has almost made up their mind, but cannot bring themselves
to make the final call.
FIGURE 21
Psychological barriers can hamper progress in both the exploration and

evaluation mindsets of the messy middle
Trigger
o r a ti o Ev a l u ati o n
Expl n
Choice overload Lack of urgency

Lack of interest
Fear of missing out Seeking validation
Lack of knowledge
Indecisiveness Risk aversion
Perceived lack of time
Decision fatigue
Purchase
CHAPTER 3 CONTENTS
SUMMARY
Just like information needs, barriers can differ between products. As

mentioned earlier, user confidence tends to be higher for products where
existing product knowledge is high, or where purchase permanence or
the cost of the product is low. But the reverse is also true, with unfamiliar,
long-term, or high-value purchases necessitating a higher information
bar, creating a higher likelihood of barriers appearing.
Another factor in the appearance of barriers is how we feel about the

product we’re thinking of buying. In categories we enjoy more, we seem
less likely to be critically blocked by psychological barriers and may even
stay in the messy middle for a prolonged period for the sheer pleasure
of it. Conversely, in a category we don’t enjoy, we might drop out of the
messy middle as soon as we encounter a barrier. And yet sometimes a
decision has to be made, especially where essentials are concerned.
After all, shopping for car insurance might not provide an endorphin buzz,
but then neither does getting pulled over without a valid policy.
FIGURE 22
The degree to which U.K. consumers claim to enjoy shopping varies

widely by category16
High enjoyment
Make-up
Low confidence High confidence
Gas or electricity provider

Low enjoyment
CHAPTER 3 CONTENTS
SUMMARY
The presence of other factors can raise barriers even when pleasure is
involved. Buying an engagement ring or a new car should prompt positive
emotions, but the cost and consequence of the purchase is still likely to
provoke indecision, risk aversion, and choice overload, among others.
Finally, there is the perceived permanence of the purchase. How long we

have to live with a decision also makes a difference to how likely we are
to end up stuck in the messy middle. Our information needs are different
if we’re buying something like a sofa, which we expect to hang on to for a
decade or more, compared to a bottle of shampoo that will be replaced in
a matter of weeks.
FIGURE 23
In the U.K., the perceived permanence of a purchase varies by category,

further influencing the types of information need and barriers at play17
Enjoyment
Face moisturiser
Make-up
Package holidays
Whisky Long-haul flight Children’s toy
SUV car Clothing
Smartphone Budget hotel Cinema tickets
Mountain bike
Confidence
Sofa Laptop Short-haul flight Cereal
Power drill Shampoo

Fitted kitchen TV
ISA account Detergent
Mobile network provider Cat food
Bathroom suite
Credit card
Mortgage
Broadband provider
Car insurance
Gas or electricity provider
Note: Size of circles represents the permanence of the product or service

— how long customers anticipate having it or needing it.
CHAPTER 3 CONTENTS
SUMMARY
Building confidence
Confidence is a key factor in determining when shoppers feel ready to exit

the messy middle and complete a purchase. As we acquire more information
about a category, our confidence grows, though the process isn’t purely
accumulative. There are multiple steps in most customer journeys, and if the
quality of information degrades from one step to the next, confidence can
be quickly eroded.
After exploring the relationship between information needs and confidence,

we wanted to understand what additional role behavioural science can play
when applied to a brand’s owned content. Our expectation was that the
ways in which offers and propositions are articulated in a brand’s own assets
are every bit as important as how they are presented in the ads and listings
encountered elsewhere in the messy middle. But as shoppers move back
and forth between exploration and evaluation, which behavioural science
principles have the biggest impact on their level of confidence?
As we acquire more information about

a category, our confidence grows, but if
the quality on information degrades then
confidence can be quickly eroded
CHAPTER 3 CONTENTS
SUMMARY
Confidence boosts
To understand how brands can help build confidence by infusing their
content with behavioural science, we took three of our invented brands
and experimented with different ways of presenting information on
websites we created for each of them.
iller (sofa brand): a low confidence category — an

M
expensive, long-term purchase.
Hyskeir (whisky brand): an average confidence category —

and not considered a long-term buy.
4sure (car insurance brand): a higher than average

confidence category — but definitely a necessity rather
than a longed-for buy.
Most of our research into the messy middle has involved a mix of real
and invented brands, but where websites are concerned, it’s hard to
control for people’s prior experience. A good user interface (UI) can be
undermined by bad customer service, while a strong brand can cover for
any number of deficiencies in website experience. By using only invented
brands, we were able to observe the impact of behavioural science on
information and confidence isolated from existing brand perceptions.
Confidence to explore
We created home pages for our invented brands to measure the role
of behavioural science in building confidence during the exploration
phase. The pages included different amounts of information, presented in
different ways, to which varying expressions of behavioural science were
applied. Participants were asked to choose which variation gave them
most confidence about making a purchase in the category. Note that
participants were not asked about their confidence in buying from the
website owner’s brand, just about the category in general. Participants
could also select “neither of the two” if neither of the options made them
feel confident — which in practice might equate to a shopper diving back
into the messy middle by returning to the Google Search results page.
CHAPTER 3 CONTENTS
SUMMARY
FIGURE 24
Q. Which website makes you feel more confident in general about purchasing a sofa?
NEITHER
Let’s take the invented Miller sofa brand as an example. A sofa purchase
tends to be relatively rare, relatively expensive, and something we plan to
live with for a reasonable amount of time. So the amount of information
needed to make us feel confident about making a purchase is likely to be
quite high.
At the most basic level, we might expect a home page to contain a few
non-negotiable pieces of information. Let’s think of this as the Bronze
version of the site:
Branding and details about the brand
Imagery and visual representation of the brand
Indication of the range of products on offer
Information about the product category
These elements are all connected to the various exploration phase

information needs we identified earlier.
CHAPTER 3 CONTENTS
SUMMARY
FIGURE 25
The Bronze version of the home page we created for

an invented sofa brand featured only the most basic
information required
To begin with, we enhanced the page by ensuring more of these key

information needs were addressed. We added an endorsement badge,
an average customer review score, and information about delivery.
In addition, we increased cognitive ease by surfacing more high-level

information likely to be already present on the site and making it more
accessible. This involved tweaking hero text and imagery, and adding
a price range scale so people could quickly assess the affordability of
Miller sofas.
We can think of this as the Silver version of the site: basic information,
polished and presented as clearly as possible, but without needing much
additional effort or investment.
CHAPTER 3 CONTENTS
SUMMARY
FIGURE 26
For the Silver version of the invented sofa brand home

page, we utilised several behavioural science principles
Social proof Emotional priming

User ratings surfaced, with Hero imagery upgraded to encourage
good but not great avg. rating more of an emotional response
Authority bias
Endorsements from
a reputable website Delivery friction
Delivery info surfaced,
with slow option only
Framing
Hero text upgraded to
frame the information in Anchoring
a more appealing way Price ranges surfaced
to help people shop
within their budget
? Paradox of choice Cognitive ease

A buying guide to help shoppers Easy-to-digest options,
avoid information overload but without imagery
Viewed through the lens of behavioural science, we can see that the way
information has been arranged on the Silver version utilises several of the
principles explored across our other research. And for this experiment we
also utilised a few more.
CHAPTER 3 CONTENTS
SUMMARY
Authority bias: the tendency to give weight Social proof: the tendency to follow
to a source of information because of its and copy the behaviour and actions of
perceived expertise. Represented here by other people in situations of ambiguity
endorsements from reputable websites. or uncertainty. Represented here by user
ratings and reviews.
Framing: our preferences are shaped by Paradox of choice: having unlimited

how information is presented, even if the choice can actually lead to indecisiveness,
choices before us ultimately lead to the dissatisfaction, and regret. We addressed
same outcome. We explored this by varying this by providing a tool or a catalogue to help
the hero text to provoke different kinds of shoppers avoid information overload.
emotional response.
Emotional priming: the tendency Anchoring: we look for reference points

to be influenced by how we feel emotionally (anchors) that we can rely on and adjust our
rather than purely rational considerations. judgements and decisions from. Anchors
We explored this by varying the hero may be based on price, past experience,
image on the home page to show a blank occasions, or social norms. We applied by
background, a domestic background, indicating price ranges on the home page to
and imagery of a family. help people shop within their budget.
Cognitive ease: we tend to favour decisions Delivery friction: reducing the time and/
that require minimal cognitive effort. or effort (friction) in which the consumer
We enhanced this by making the options would receive an item they are thinking
more easily digestible. of purchasing. This can be thought of
as analogous to power of now, which we
explored in some of our other experiments.
Examples would be reducing delivery times,
or offering the availability for the consumer
to pick up the item themselves.
For a full definition of all the principles we reference in our research,

visit the Behavioural science glossary at the end of the report.
CHAPTER 3 CONTENTS
SUMMARY
9%
56 CHAPTER 3 B O O S T I N G C O NNEITHER
F I D E N C E I N T H E M E S SY M I D D L E
And how did the Silver version perform compared to Bronze? Pretty
well, as it turns out. In fact, twice as many participants selected Silver
over Bronze. And a lower proportion chose “neither” when shown the
Silver option, meaning fewer people were likely to leave the site and look
elsewhere. This shows the value of simply optimising the information that
shoppers are looking for, with basic improvements leading to a significant
confidence boost among our shoppers.
FIGURE 27
Twice as many participants

selected the Silver version of
the home page over the Bronze,
showing that basic improvements
can provide shoppers with a
significant confidence boost18
9%
NEITHER
61%
30%
Improving beyond Silver isn’t so easy. Some changes require additional

investment while others must be earned, such as through excellence in
product or service quality.
For the final enhancements, we upgraded the endorsement so that it

came from a more reputable third-party authority, boosted review scores
from 4.5 to 4.8, and improved delivery terms to be best in market. We
also upgraded the buying guide to provide shoppers with even more
accessible information to aid their decision. A more advanced pricing tool
allowed for even more nuanced pricing preferences, while enhanced hero
imagery and text made category considerations even more intuitive. Let’s
call this optimised site the Gold version.
CHAPTER 3 CONTENTS
18 Google/The Behavioural Architects, N=1000 in-market online shoppers of sofas, U.K., 2023.
SUMMARY
FIGURE 28
For the Gold version of the invented sofa brand

home page, we optimised the behavioural science
principle expressions even further
Social proof Emotional priming

User ratings surfaced, Hero imagery enhanced to make
with a high 4.8 avg. rating decisions more intuitive
Authority bias
Endorsements
from a well-known, Delivery friction
reputable website Delivery info surfaced,
with best-in-market terms
Framing
Hero text upgraded to
frame the information in Anchoring
a more appealing way Price ranges surfaced to
help people shop within
their budget, with more
nuanced options

A tool to help shoppers More easily digestible
avoid information overload options, with imagery
And how did Gold perform against Silver? Directly comparing the two, a
higher proportion of participants chose the Gold version over the Silver
version. This is impressive considering the fact that information on the
Silver version was already comprehensive and well-optimised.
CHAPTER 3 CONTENTS
SUMMARY
NEITHER
FIGURE 29
A significantly higher proportion

of participants selected the
Gold version of the home page
over the Silver version19
6%
NEITHER
36%
58%
In addition to sofas, we tested two other categories — car insurance

and whisky — that differ in terms of confidence, enjoyment, and
permanence. And while we had to make some product-specific tweaks
to how information was presented on these pages, we saw strikingly
similar results.
While the impact of the behavioural science expressions was very

similar, there were certain ways of addressing information needs that
worked better for some products than others. For car insurance, the
confidence of our shoppers was particularly boosted by expert reviews,
which had less impact in the other two categories. For sofas and whisky,
the brand impressions created by home-page visuals were more
effective. The sofa category also saw confidence boosted significantly
by providing tools that allow shoppers to explore and understand the full
product range. This feature was also beneficial for whisky shoppers, but
had less impact on car insurance.
CHAPTER 3 CONTENTS
SUMMARY
Authority bias Delivery friction
FIGURE 30
We supercharged the product pages of our invented brands with behavioural

Social proof
science principles and information needs more closely tailored to evaluation

Framing
Emotional
priming
Social proof
Cognitive ease Anchoring ? Paradox of choice

Framing
Emotional
priming
Cognitive ease Anchoring ? Paradox of choice
Social proof Emotional priming Delivery friction
Authority bias
Social proof Emotional priming Delivery friction

Anchoring
Framing
Authority bias
Anchoring
Framing
CHAPTER 3 CONTENTS
SUMMARY
A note on the performance of Gold and Silver

While our Gold, Silver, and Bronze pages generally ranked in performance
as their names suggest, we did encounter a few unexpected results. Sofa
shoppers did not appear to have a preference for whether their product
was delivered within a week or within a four- to six-week delivery window.
If anything, they may have had a slight preference for the longer delivery
timeframe. Our working hypothesis here is that quality assumptions
related to lead times might explain the ambivalence over delivery windows,
especially for a product like a sofa where shoppers want their product to
be well made. While these results are statistically significant, every brand
is different. So testing to find the right approach remains critical.
Another unexpected finding across all three products was that interactive
tools and guides had little impact. Here we hypothesise that the effort of
either paging through a guide or working out how to use an unfamiliar tool
was perceived as being greater than the likely gain in information.
Again, we should offer a note of caution about real-world implications:
as our page was a mock-up, shoppers couldn’t actually interact with the
tools or guides. But as their presence had a low impact on confidence,
it certainly suggests that research and testing would be wise before
investing in this kind of functionality or content.
CHAPTER 3 CONTENTS
SUMMARY
Confidence to evaluate
Our home pages were designed to meet information needs and reduce
psychological barriers during the expansive exploration mindset. But
we also wanted to understand what content would be most confidence-
building for consumers in the reductive evaluation mindset. For this we
created a near identical experiment using product detail pages rather
than home pages.
For the product page, we tested a different set of behavioural science

principles and information needs more closely tailored to evaluation. But
the process was otherwise identical.
FIGURE 31

Anchoring
Cognitive
ease
Social proof Default bias
CHAPTER 3 CONTENTS
SUMMARY
Participants were presented with variations of Bronze, Silver, and Gold,

with features such as reviews, ratings, payment plans, and delivery terms
all varying in presentation and strength of expression. The behavioural
science principles explored in this phase of the experiment included:
Anchoring: we look for reference points Mental accounting: people tend to keep
(anchors) that we can rely on and adjust our track of spending by attributing purchases to
judgements and decisions from. Anchors different mental budgets. We explored this
may be based on price, past experience, by providing different payment plans, which
occasions, or social norms. We applied by are a desirable category norm.
indicating price ranges on the homepage to
help people shop within their budget.
Authority bias: the tendency to give weight Cognitive ease: we tend to favour decisions
to a source of information because of its that require minimal cognitive effort. We
perceived expertise. Represented in our enhanced this by making the options more
experiment by endorsements from reputable easily digestible.
websites.
Paradox of choice: having unlimited Default bias: a tendency to continue

choice can actually lead to indecisiveness, behaving as we always have done,
dissatisfaction, and regret. We explored this manifesting in online shopping as a
by providing various trial periods. preference for default options. This bias
was explored by providing a default
delivery option.
Social proof: the tendency to follow and Endowment effect: the tendency to place
copy the behaviour and actions of other a higher value on objects we own. We
people in situations of ambiguity explored this bias by using a tool that allowed
or uncertainty. Represented here by shoppers to visualise a sofa in their own
user ratings and reviews. home (though participants could not interact
with the tool).
For a full definition of all the principles we reference in our research,

visit the Behavioural science glossary at the end of the report.
CHAPTER 3 CONTENTS
SUMMARY
FIGURE 32

Anchoring
Mental THIS WHISKY WAS AWARDED BEST

HIGHLAND WHISKY 2023 BY YOUR
CHOICE. CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT WHY.
accounting Authority
bias
Endowment
effect Cognitive
ease

? Paradox of choice
Anchoring
Want to know why we

have been endorsed by
Your Choice? Click here
to read the full review
Authority bias
Cognitive
ease
Endowment
effect Mental
accounting
?
Paradox of
choice
CHAPTER 3 CONTENTS
SUMMARY
9%
NEITHER
As with our home page experiment, we found that basic optimisation

towards shoppers’ most common information needs resulted in a Silver
page that substantially outperformed the default Bronze page in all three
categories we tested.
FIGURE 33
More than twice as many

participants preferred the Silver
product detail pages with basic
optimisation, over the Bronze
versions with no optimisation20
11%
NEITHER
63%
26%
CHAPTER 3 CONTENTS
SUMMARY
28%
8%
NEITHER
And when a Gold version of the page was fully optimised with expressions
of our behavioural science principles, a similar step-change in confidence
was visible between Gold and Silver.
FIGURE 34
More than twice as many

participants preferred the
Gold product detail pages
with fuller optimisation, over
the Silver versions with basic
optimisation21
8%
NEITHER
64% 28%
As in our home page experiment, we saw some commonalities — such as

the importance of expert reviews in all three categories — but also some
salient differences. In the car insurance category, expressions relating to
product features and visual layout were more important than in either of
the other categories. Intuitively, this makes sense given that car insurance
is a more information-dense category and therefore shoppers benefit
from having clearer detail about what is being offered.
CHAPTER 3 CONTENTS
SUMMARY
In the sofa category, a greater degree of relative importance was

attached to delivery terms, which again makes sense as this is generally
not a product category shoppers can take home themselves. For
whisky, we noted that several information needs — price, consumer
reviews, delivery terms, and range of options — showed similar levels
of importance. This indicates that all of these information needs play a
meaningful role in shopper confidence.
Boosting confidence and boosting sales
At the start of this chapter, we stepped out of a marketing mindset and

began thinking like consumers. Now that we’ve explored how behavioural
science can help answer information needs and boost confidence, we’re
going to return to the marketer’s point of view.
We all want shoppers to feel confident, but marketers will understandably

be wondering if all of this increased confidence is likely to lead to
increased sales. To answer that question, we re-ran both the home page
and product page experiments, but this time, instead of rating their
confidence, participants were asked to choose the version that would
make them more likely to consider buying a sofa from Miller, whisky from
Hyskeir, or car insurance from 4sure.
Marketers who invest in anticipating

and answering the information needs of
consumers may be rewarded with increased
purchase consideration
And we found that exactly the same factors that inspire shopper
confidence also drive consideration. This suggests that there is
reciprocity at play — that marketers who invest in anticipating and
answering the information needs of consumers may be rewarded with
increased purchase consideration. Helping to boost shopper confidence
turns out to be a win-win.
CHAPTER 3 CONTENTS
SUMMARY
FIGURE 35
Exploration Evaluation
During exploration, the same factors that
inspire consumer confidence also inspire
consumers to consider purchasing22
Sofas Car insurance Whisky
25
Emotional priming Authority bias
20
Cognitive ease
Importance in driving consideration
Cognitive ease
Emotional priming
15
Cognitive ease
Social proof
Social proof
Authority bias
Anchoring
Authority bias
10 Text inspiration Social proofing
Delivery friction Anchoring
Paradox of choice Framing
Anchoring
Delivery friction
Framing
Visual/text inspiration
Framing
5 Service friction
0
2004 5 10 15 20 25
Importance in driving confidence
Sofa Brand
Whisky
Car Insurance
CHAPTER 3 CONTENTS
22 Google/The Behavioural Architects, N=6000 in-market online shoppers of sofas, whisky and car insurance, U.K., 2023.
SUMMARY
F I G U R E 3 5 CO N T I N U E D
Exploration Evaluation
During evaluation, the same factors that
inspire consumer confidence also inspire
consumers to consider purchasing23
Sofas Car insurance Whisky
25
Authority bias
20
Importance in driving consideration
Authority bias
Anchoring
Anchoring Authority bias
15
Mental accounting Social proof
Defaults
Social proof Mental accounting

Defaults
Endowment Range of options
Mental accounting
10 Paradox of choice
Cognitive ease
Endowment Paradox of choice
Defaults
Social proof
Endowment
Cognitive ease
5 Anchoring
0
2004 5 10 15 20 25
Importance in driving confidence
Sofa Brand
Whisky
Car Insurance
CHAPTER 3 CONTENTS
23 Google/The Behavioural Architects, N=6000 in-market online shoppers of sofas, whisky and car insurance, U.K., 2023.
SUMMARY
3Chapter summary
Confidence is key to exiting the messy middle and making a

purchase. But underlying levels of confidence vary widely by
category, as do enjoyment and perceived permanence of a
purchase.
Information needs and psychological barriers vary by product

category, but common needs and barriers can be mapped to the
exploration and evaluation mindsets in the messy middle.
Optimising website assets for the varying information needs and

adding a touch of behavioural science principles can boost the
confidence of the shopper in the shopper journey.
The same factors that inspire shopper confidence also drive

consideration. This suggests that marketers who invest in
anticipating and answering the information needs of consumers
may be rewarded with increased purchase consideration.
CONTENTS
4 Shopping in the
messy middle
Exploring and evaluating in the messy middle isn’t only about deciding
what product you want to buy — you also have to figure out where you’re
going to buy it from. And just as the internet age has seen a rapid increase
in the number of available products, the number of sellers has risen in
tandem. This entanglement between products and points of sale invites
several interesting questions:
I s it easier to encourage consumers to change what they buy or

where they buy it from?
Can retailers24 also use behavioural science to drive consumer choice?
What can brands do to encourage consumers to buy directly

from them?
How can marketers build propositions that inspire confidence without

relying exclusively on brand or pricing?
To answer these questions, we ran a new experiment focused on nine

product categories: trainers, dog food, whisky, laptops, face moisturiser,
second-hand cars, flights, hotels, and mobile SIM cards.25 This means that
in addition to our nine invented brands, we also invented nine retailers to
simulate the entry of new sellers into the marketplace.
24 Retailers” is used here as a catch-all term for any point of sale from which consumers purchase items or services.
CHAPTER 4 CONTENTS
25 Each category was tested with a minimum of 800 in-market shoppers.”
SUMMARY
S H O P P I N G I N T H E M E S SY M I D D L E
71 CHAPTER 4
FIGURE 36
We tested nine invented retailers to simulate the impact of behavioural science

principles on new market entrants
Category Brand Retailer
Trainers
Laptop
Moisturiser
Products
Dog food
Whisky
Second-hand car
Flights
Services
Hotel
SIM
Once again, we applied some of the most powerful behavioural science

principles revealed by our original research: social proof, authority
bias, category heuristics, and power of free. Full definitions of all these
principles and more can be found in the Behavioural science glossary
at the end of the report.
CHAPTER 4 CONTENTS
SUMMARY
72 CHAPTER 4
But while those principles work well for exploring and evaluating products,
there are some additional factors that come into play at the moment of
purchase decision-making. So for this experiment we added delivery
friction26 — how quickly consumers receive an item — which can be thought
of as analogous to power of now, which we explored in some of our other
experiments. And to measure the importance of value to purchase decision-
making, we added price and promotion as a variable, testing products at full
price as well as with discounts of 10% and 15%. It’s important to note here
that no behavioural science was applied to how this pricing information
was presented to shoppers. And as with our previous experiments, we have
to acknowledge the value of existing brand equity, with household-name
retailers enjoying a meaningful head start.
FIGURE 37
We tested the impact of different factors in the exploration and

evaluation stages, and in the purchase decision-making moment
Product (what) Retailer (where)
Social proof Power of free
Category heuristics Price and promotion
Product brand Retailer brand
In our experiment, shoppers were asked to choose first-choice and second-

choice brands for both product and retailer brands. They were then shown
eight simulated shopping scenarios with different expressions of our chosen
behavioural science principles. For example, the star rating of a product
might change, or a non-favoured retailer might offer a promotion on a
favourite product. The purpose of this design was to see which elements
were most important in the joint proposition of product + retailer.
26 For service-based categories we used risk aversion to explore how retailers can enhance a proposition with better terms for
cancellation after purchase. This was an alternative to delivery friction, which we use for physical products. For example, instead of “free
next day delivery” (minimise friction in delivery), we had “no cancellation fee” (mitigate the risk around any decision with a service). For
services where there is no physical product to deliver, mitigating the perceived risk around cancelling a service offers an equivalent but
CHAPTER 4 CONTENTS
more realistic proposition brands could use for those categories.
SUMMARY
73 CHAPTER 4
FIGURE 38
We simulated shopping experiences for first-choice brands and second-choice

brands, varying the ways we expressed different behavioural science principles
OPTION 1
Your favourite trainers retailer You
4.9
Trainer brand
22 reviews
Minimum shipping Free sta

fees apply Top industry award and retu
Durable and lightweight Free 30-

Free high-visibility laces
to traini
£90.00
OPTION 2
Your second-favourite trainers retailer
.9 4.0
eviews
Free standard delivery

ndustry award and returns Top industry award
e and lightweight Free 30-day access Proprietary cushioning

to training app technology
Now £76.50 — £13.50 off!
CHAPTER 4 CONTENTS
SUMMARY
74 CHAPTER 4
FIGURE 39
How we tested price and promotion in most categories
Participants were asked to state how much they would be willing to pay
for a product in the category they are considering making a purchase in.
“For the trainers you are looking to buy, how much would you be looking to pay?
Please be as accurate as possible using the slider below.”
£90
£25 £200
We either piped that price directly into the simulation, without a promotion,
or added a 10% or 15% discount.
£90 £90
Now £76.50
Buy now Buy now
How we tested price and framing in the second-hand car category
“For the second-hand car you are looking to buy, how much would you be looking
to pay? Please be as accurate as possible using the slider below.”
£27K
£1,000 £50K
We framed that price in relation to the average market price for second-hand cars.
£22,950 £24,300
£4,050 £2,700
below market below market
average average
Enquire now Enquire now
CHAPTER 4 CONTENTS
SUMMARY
75 CHAPTER 4
Retailers, products, and pricing
Analysing the thousands of decisions modelled across our product and

retailer experiment allows us to draw some category-wide conclusions
about how these elements contribute to decision-making.
One of our first goals was to understand the relative “stickiness” of

product and retailer preference. We began with a relatively level playing
field, comparing the effect of simply asking shoppers to choose between
combinations of their first-choice brands and second-choice brands and
retailers with identical propositions.
When shoppers were shown their first-choice retailer offering both their
first-choice brand and second-choice brand,, an average of 27% decided
to switch brand preference to their second choice. However, when
shoppers were asked to choose between buying their preferred brand
from either their first-choice or second-choice retailer, 48% were willing
to switch.
In other words, all things being equal,

product preference appears to be much
more durable than retailer preference
And this effect was amplified once we began to apply behavioural
science. We found that supercharging product propositions with
behavioural science was enough to shift preference away from first-
choice brands to second-choice brands, or — as shown in the upcoming
charts — to completely invented brands. While there was some variance
by category, the pattern across product brands was consistent across
many categories (though travel and second-hand cars behaved a little
differently, as we’ll explore later).
CHAPTER 4 CONTENTS
SUMMARY
76 CHAPTER 4
FIGURE 40
In the U.K., supercharging invented product brands

with behavioural science had a significant impact on brand
preference across all categories27
Products
First-choice product brand Invented product brand
25% 25% 25% 27% 29% 31% 48% 52% 68%
75% 75% 75% 73% 71% 69%

52% 48%
32%
Laptop SIM Whisky Moisturiser Dog food Trainers Flights Hotel Second-
hand car
However, on the retailer side of the equation, the effect of behavioural

science was significantly more pronounced. Even completely invented
retailers with supercharged propositions were able to attract large
numbers of shoppers away from their first choice and second choice.
Around a third of shoppers were prepared to switch from their first choice
to an invented product brand, but more than eight out of 10 switched to
an invented retailer.
CHAPTER 4 CONTENTS
27 Google/The Behavioural Architects, U.K., n=844-1001 prospective online purchasers per category, ages 18-75, 2022.
SUMMARY
77 CHAPTER 4
F I G U R E 41
In the U.K., supercharging invented retailers with

behavioural science had an even more pronounced
impact on brand preference28
Retailers
First-choice retailer brand Invented retailer brand
68% 73% 79% 84% 85% 85% 91% 94% 94%
32%
27%
21%
16% 15% 15% 9% 6% 6%
Whisky Dog food Flights Trainers Moisturiser SIM Hotel Laptop Second-
hand car
This presents a risk and an opportunity for established retailers and

newcomers alike. While this data shows that shoppers are very willing
to switch to a different point of sale, that doesn’t change the absolute
number of sales waiting to be won or lost. And with behavioural science
as a powerful persuasive factor, the key for retailers is simply to win
more than they lose.
Retailer vs. product
After finding such a substantial difference between product and retailer

“stickiness”, we wanted to dig deeper. So the next step was to calculate
importance scores for each of the elements in our experiment, to see if
any patterns emerged in their contribution to both propositions.
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78 CHAPTER 4
We found that influence was divided almost equally between those

principles relating to product (the what) and those that have more to do
with the retailer (the where). This outcome was neither predetermined
nor expected. And while we saw less stickiness for retailers, it tells us
that both aspects — what and where — are important. Consumers
want the right product and they also want a convenient shopping
experience from retailers.
FIGURE 42
In the U.K., we found that influence was divided almost equally

between behavioural science principles relating to product (the what)
and those that have more to do with the retailer (the where)29
Product brand 17% Prices and discount 30%
Social proof 15%
Power of free 9%
Category heuristics 8%
Delivery friction or
risk aversion 8%
Authority bias 7% Retailer brand 8%
Note: The eagle-eyed among you may notice the sum total is 102% — don’t worry, it’s not an error, but due to rounding to whole numbers
For marketers this means that whether you’re focused on retail or

product marketing — or both — there are behavioural science levers on
both sides that influence consumer decision-making. Ideally these would
be delivered in harmony, making it easier for consumers to bundle the
right product with the right experience.
29 Google/The Behavioural Architects, U.K., n=8,645 prospective online purchasers (of categories: trainers,
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laptop, face moisturiser, dog food, whisky, second-hand car, mobile SIM, flights, hotel), ages 18-75, 2022.
SUMMARY
79 CHAPTER 4
Secondly, we see the continuing importance of brands in decision-

making. This was a recurring question from readers of our original
research, so we’re pleased to shed more light on it here. As we’ve covered
elsewhere, brand remains important. But, between products and retailers,
not all brands are created equal.
In the chart below, the light blue segment representing the influence of
the product brand is much larger than the dark blue one representing the
retailer brand — in fact, it’s twice as large:
FIGURE 43
The influence of the product brand was twice as large as the influence
of the retailer brand when it came to influencing shopper preference30
Product brand 17%
Retailer brand 8%
And this makes intuitive sense. If a shopper already has an item in mind
(a new pair of name-brand trainers, for example), it’s much easier to
influence where they buy those trainers than to change their mind about
which brand they want to buy. For retailers, this means that having the
right range of products curated and available in stock is vital.
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Thirdly, it will be no surprise that pricing and promotion were important

factors, accounting for 30% of decision-making in our experiment.
Assessing results across all the categories we tested, price and
discounting made the biggest overall contribution to decision-making.
Next came product brand with 17%, though retailer brand only ranked
joint fifth with an influence score of 8%.
Social proof was the strongest behavioural science principle, with the
rest largely making equal contributions. This reinforces the results from
our previous experiments, showing just how important reviews are in
boosting confidence. Comments and star ratings have to be earned by
good products and good service, but they shouldn’t be out of reach for
any determined brand or retailer.
Social proof was the strongest

behavioural science principle, showing
just how important reviews are in
boosting confidence
Behavioural science vs. price
For both brands and retailers, economic realities mean it isn’t always
easy to pull the big lever marked “discounts”. And if that’s the case, then
our results offer plenty of cause for optimism. After all, 70% of decision-
making in our experiments was still driven by factors other than price.
In fact, in many instances, the cumulative effect of applied behavioural
science matched that of discounting.
As we discussed at the end of the previous chapter, there could be a

beneficial reciprocity at work here, with shoppers rewarding those brands
and retailers who take the time to provide them with the information they
need, in a format they find easy to understand, and that shows awareness
of the underlying human behaviours that guide our decision-making.
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81 CHAPTER 4
FIGURE 44
In the U.K., 70% of decision-making in our experiments

was driven by factors other than price31
Power
of free
Prices and
discount
Delivery
friction
30%
70% Price and discount
Other factors
Authority
bias Brand
Category
Social proof
heuristics
The most effective behavioural science principles varied by category,

but to go back to our trainers example, appropriate expressions of social
proof, category heuristics, and power of free had as much cumulative
impact in our test as price and discounting. In fact when we supercharged
propositions with the strongest expressions of the relevant behavioural
science principles, they had more impact on shopper choice than a 10%
discount in the laptop, trainers, and moisturiser categories.
Some of the principles we’ve described are easier to implement than

others, especially if you already have a strong review base or expert
endorsements. As we saw in the previous chapter, some improvements
might even require a significant investment of time or money, such
as logistical adjustments to shorten delivery windows or provide free
shipping. But before you discount, it’s worth looking at all the other
levers available to you — especially the ones that aren’t as costly for
your brand to activate.
31 Google/The Behavioural Architects, U.K., n=8,645 prospective online purchasers (of categories: trainers, lap-
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top, face moisturiser, dog food, whisky, second-hand car, mobile SIM, flights, hotel), ages 18-75, 2022.
SUMMARY
82 CHAPTER 4
FIGURE 45
We found that combinations of behavioural science principles have as

much cumulative impact as price and discounting32
Prices and
discount
31% 30%
Social proof
Power
of free
Category
heuristics
Beyond brands and pricing, behavioural science gives us a powerful

lens through which to analyse other key factors that affect our decision-
making. The impact of these other factors did vary category by category,
with some clearly more price-sensitive and brand-sensitive than
others. However, there were no categories where the relative impact
of the behavioural science expressions was so small as to suggest
that it wouldn’t make a difference in situations where margin or other
considerations prevent discounting.
Throughout the various phases of our research, we’ve been surprised

again and again by the power of these expressions to help shoppers
clarify their needs, gain confidence in their choices, and ultimately make
the decision to buy. And perhaps no finding has surprised us as much as
realising that a little bit of applied behavioural science can have the
same impact as offering a meaningful discount on price.
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A quick look at: Retail realities
While our research into retail decision-making focuses on the online

environment, the physical reality of how people shop is admittedly
more complicated. E-commerce — or “internet street” as we
characterised it in our original research — is still growing and there are
now countless online retailers that make up the backbone of the digital
economy. But over the past decade, the line between internet street
and high street has begun to blur.
FIGURE 46
Across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, as many as

two-thirds of consumers now shop in a channel agnostic way33
Online Offline Agnostic
69%
67% 65%
58% 61%
33%
29% 24%
19% 22%
10% 14% 11% 9%
9%
2019 2020 2021 2022 2023
As many as two-thirds of consumers now shop in a channel agnostic

way, moving from digital to physical retail and back again as their needs
change. And as the chart on the next page demonstrates, both online and
offline media drive online and offline retail traffic.
33 Google / Savanta / Cint / Kantar, Ireland, U.K., Austria, Germany, Switzerland, France, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Belgium, Denmark, Finland,
Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia,
Egypt, Ghana, Israel, Kenya, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, U.A.E., Smart Shopper Research, Online - product buyers of
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Consumer Electronics, Home and Garden, Fashion, Toys, Beauty, Food. n = min 1000 per category, per year.
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84 CHAPTER 4
FIGURE 47
Both online and offline media drive online and offline sales, but in this study digital
media drove a substantial 65% of e-commerce’s media-generated revenue
43% 35%
57% 65%
Digital E-commerce
29%
46%
71%
54%
Traditional Bricks and mortar
The left-hand side of the flowchart34 shows the proportion of revenue

driven by digital and traditional media that flowed to e-commerce or
physical channels (both channels have non-media-driven revenue not
included here). Both digital and traditional media were successful at
driving omnichannel sales. However, while revenue from digital media
was split almost 50/50 between the two sales channels, revenue from
traditional media showed a 70/30 split in favour of physical retail. Overall,
digital media drove 65% of e-commerce’s media-generated revenue,
showing how dependent the channel is on digital media activity. Find out
more about omni-channel retail here on Think with Google.
In addition to the separation between online and offline becoming

narrower, so too has the divide between manufacturers and retailers.
Logistics, digital storefronts, warehousing, and fulfilment have all been
significantly commoditised, leaving brands to focus on what they do
best. Technological solutions now exist for relationship management,
customer service, and other aspects of the shopping journey. This has
all contributed to a trend of manufacturers opening direct-to-consumer
stores on top of their traditional retail sales channels.
34 Google / Analytic Partners ROI Genome, Global, Get Retail Ready: A meta study in driving business success, n=152
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omnichannel retailers, 2019-2020.
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Full-spectrum retail
In addition to exploring the relationship between choice of product

and choice of retailer, we also wanted to take a closer look at
different flavours of retail. The retail environment varies considerably
depending on product category and whether manufacturers also
sell directly to consumers. So we included all of these scenarios in our
experiment, creating invented aggregators and direct-to-consumer
brands as necessary.
Physical products and services

To measure the difference between these two broad categories, we
deliberately chose to test a mix of physical products (dog food, whisky,
laptops, face moisturiser, and second-hand cars) and services (flights,
hotels, and mobile SIM contracts). And, for the most part, our results
show only minimal variance between the two groups. However, a few
unique insights do stand out. Firstly, promotions appear to have a larger
impact on travel services than on physical products, with flights and hotel
contracts exhibiting greater price sensitivity.
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FIGURE 48
Promotions appear to have a larger impact on travel services,

such as flights and hotels, than on physical products35
39%
Flights
Services 35%
Hotel
31%
SIM
30%
7% Trainers
Prices and discount 30%
(average across categories tested)
29%
Whisky
28%
Dog food
Products
27%
Laptop
25%
Moisturiser
21%
Second-hand
car
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Conversely, in the case of second-hand cars, pricing (as expressed

through price framing)36 had much less impact. Instead, social proof
was more important. This perhaps speaks to a combination of the cost
of purchase and a lack of mechanical knowledge — especially as the
financial and safety consequences of buying the wrong car could be
severe. Social proof is a powerful principle — in fact it was the most
powerful behavioural science principle in all nine categories — but its
power on second-hand cars was 1.7X greater than its average effect in
other categories.
D2C or not D2C?
Alongside digital-native manufacturers selling directly through online

channels, several other categories allow for direct-to-consumer (D2C)
sales (think hotel chains that offer direct booking or fashion stores that
sell their own brands alongside other labels). But to keep things simple,
our investigation into this area focused on goods rather than services.
We also limited ourselves to those categories where it was feasible for
the same product to be available from both resellers and direct from
the manufacturer: trainers, dog food, whisky, laptops, and moisturisers.
The economic pros and cons of launching a D2C channel are beyond
the remit of this research. But there was one important question we
wanted to answer: do consumers respond differently to D2C compared
to any other retailer?
Based on our experiments, the short answer is no. Our results suggest that
manufacturers going D2C are likely to achieve preference shares similar to
those of average category retailers, providing they are present during the
decision-making process to give consumers a choice. In a variant of our
product/retailer experiment that included a D2C option, the results were
roughly in line with those of second-choice or challenger retailers.
When price and proposition were kept the same, on average 42% of
shoppers across categories chose the D2C option over their preferred
retailer, compared to an average of 47% for their second-choice
retailer. When supercharged, the average was 73% compared to 77%,
respectively. Looking at the range in results across categories, there was
considerable overlap between the intervals.
36 It’s worth noting here that the same sorts of expressions were used across all nine categories with only two exceptions. For the second-
hand car category we used price framing rather than an explicit percentage discount. This is better aligned to the market reality for the cat-
egory, both as a convention widely used on second-hand car sales websites and, especially, given the context of the car market in recent
years, which has seen price inflation as a result of supply chain shortages and manufacturing delays. And for service based categories we
used risk aversion to explore how retailers can enhance a proposition with better terms for cancellation after purchase as an alternative to
delivery friction. For example, instead of “free next day delivery” (minimise friction in delivery), we had “no cancellation fee” (mitigate the
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risk around any decision with a service).
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FIGURE 49
Our results suggest that manufacturers going D2C are likely to achieve
preference shares similar to those of average category retailers37
Range across categories where participants chose a second-choice retailer or D2C
Range in response Average across categories
When retailer “just shows up”
Second-
choice 0% 36% 57% 100%
retailer 0% 36% 57% 100%
47%
47%
0% 35% 51% 100%
Direct to
0% 35% 51% 100%
consumer 0% 36% 57% 100%
0% 36% 42% 57% 100%
42% 47%
47%
0%
0% 35% 51% 68% 91% 100%
100%
0%
0% 35% 51% 68% 91% 100%
100%
When retailer is supercharged with
42% two behavioural science
77% principles
42% 77%
Second- 0% 56% 88% 100%

choice 0% 56% 88% 100%
0% 68% 91% 100%
73%
retailer 0% 68% 91% 100%
73%77%
77%
0% 56% 88% 100%
Direct to
0% 56% 88% 100%
consumer
73%
73%
So while each manufacturer will have to weigh up the costs and benefits
of embracing D2C, our research shows that if the numbers make sense,
the channel could be terrain worth exploring within the messy middle for
brands who can build propositions with insight and intelligence.
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37 Google/The Behavioural Architects, U.K., n=1,000 prospective online purchasers per category, ages 18-75, June 2022.
SUMMARY
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4
Chapter summary
Exploring and evaluating in the messy middle isn’t only

about deciding what you want to buy — consumers also
have to figure out where they’re going to buy from.
When it comes to the moment of purchase decision-making

many of the behavioural science principles we’ve tested
for explore and evaluate also play a role. But there are
additional principles and factors crucial here — for instance
delivery friction (how soon you can receive an item), and the
role of pricing and promotion.
People’s preference for specific products and services is

stronger than it is for retailers. Completely invented retailers
with supercharged propositions were able to attract large
numbers of shoppers away from their first-choice and
second-choice retailers — on average more than eight out
of 10 in our tests switched to an invented retailer.
While promotional activity does play a key role in decision-

making, supercharging propositions with the best
expressions of relevant behavioural science principles can
have as much, if not more, impact on what people choose.
CONTENTS
Conclusion
We began this research project with a hunch that age-old behavioural

traits are the key to understanding online decision-making. And we end
our latest bulletin with arguably the most striking insight to date: that
“charging” a proposition with modest expressions of behavioural science
can be as persuasive as a 10% price cut.
Ensure brand presence
One of the most surprising findings from our original research was that
simply showing up could be enough to cause a meaningful proportion of
shoppers to switch from their first-choice brand to a challenger. But what
does showing up mean in an ever-expanding digital landscape?
Broad coverage has moved from being an aspiration to a necessity.

Marketers — and retailers — need to show up and connect with
consumers, wherever they are. And while there’s no doubting the
challenge of being present in all the viable information patches of the
messy middle, marketers do at least have a powerful ally in making this
happen. As we enter a new era of marketing, a new generation of tools,
including Google AI, will enable businesses to connect new customers
with relevant ads across channels in real time.
CONTENTS
CONCLUSION
91 CONCLUSION
Close the gap between trigger and purchase
Showing up is crucial, but how you show up can be decisive. At every

touchpoint, marketers need to lean on their creativity to provide content
and messaging that draw shoppers to their patch and satisfy their
information needs. With new channels and surfaces emerging all the time,
it won’t be possible to hand-craft content for every possible surface,
environment, and scenario. Instead marketers will need to integrate
behavioural science into flexible campaigns, with AI taking on the burden
of customising specific formats. But with brilliant baseline assets, those
campaigns may earn reciprocity by helping shoppers explore, evaluate,
and exit the messy middle.
Employ behavioural science creatively and responsibly
Being present is one thing, but being present and helpful requires
something more. After all, it’s highly unlikely that yours will be the
only brand showing up at any given moment in the messy middle. The
behavioural science principles explored in this report provide a powerful
toolkit to help marketers enhance the effectiveness of their ads and
owned content. What will ultimately set brands apart is how they harness
creativity and human insight to craft compelling propositions that address
the underlying behavioural drivers governing what people choose to buy
and where they choose to buy from.
CONTENTS
CONCLUSION
92 CONCLUSION
At the conclusion of our original research we made

three recommendations that are worth revisiting here
1 2 3
Ensure brand Close the Employ
presence gap between behavioural
trigger and science
purchase creatively and
responsibly
These broad conclusions were the result of our initial exploration of the
messy middle — a territory that only reveals its topography as a result of
patient, large-scale research. Happily, after several years of further study,
we still believe they hold, albeit with a couple of refinements.
CONTENTS
Appendix
Behavioural science glossary
These definitions were developed in partnership with The Behavioural

Architects. It’s important to note that hundreds of different behavioural
science principles exist, but these are the ones we used in our research.
Definitions can also vary depending on context — these definitions are
drawn from our own interpretations.
Affect bias: the tendency to make decisions based on how we feel rather
than any rational or thought-out reason. Imagery is often powerful due to
the potential for high affect.
Ambiguity aversion: when choices have to be made between alternatives

that involve uncertainty and unclearness about the future, it has been
found that people prefer choices involving clear probabilities to those
involving vague probabilities.
Anchoring: we look for reference points (anchors) that we can rely on

and adjust our judgements and decisions from. Anchors may be based
on price, past experience, occasions, or social norms. Price anchoring can
be supported by indicating price ranges on a home page to help people
shop within their budget.
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Authority bias: the tendency to attribute greater accuracy and knowledge

to the opinion of a perceived authority figure and be more influenced
by that opinion. That authority can be achieved through fame, power,
or position. In advertising and marketing, this cognitive bias is quite
common, being found in product recommendations by professionals and
testimonials by celebrities or public figures.
Category heuristics: a category heuristic is a mental shortcut that helps

us make a quick decision within a given category without having to explore
in detail all the characteristics of each option in depth. In other words,
category heuristics are shortcuts or rules of thumb that aid us in making a
quick and satisfactory decision within a given category. Heuristics that link
to category norms and trends are particularly effective.
Cognitive ease: the natural desire a person has to make decisions and
judgements using “System 1” thinking, a type of thinking that happens
automatically and with little effort, driven by instinct and experiences.
When information is presented in a way that requires minimal cognitive
capacity, it enables someone to make decisions using “System 1” thinking.
Costly signalling: signals communicate information to others through a

message and the way the signal is communicated can boost the credibility
of the message. Costly signalling is a type of messaging aimed to convey
a brand has considerable wealth, e.g., a sponsorship of a prime time TV
show. This attributed wealth can be a positive sign of the brand’s health,
quality, or performance.
Default bias: we tend to stick with what has already been selected for us
— the “default” — or continue behaving as we always have done. This can
manifest in online shopping in choosing preferences that have been
pre-selected rather than making our own decisions.
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Delivery friction: reducing the time and/or effort (friction) in which the
consumer would receive an item they are thinking of purchasing. This can
be thought of as analogous to power of now, which we explored in some
of our other experiments. Examples would be reducing delivery times, or
offering the availability for the consumer to pick up the item themselves.
Diversification bias: a choice heuristic that says we tend to seek more

variety when making several choices at once than when making choices
sequentially, one at a time, over a period of time.
Emotional priming: primes are subconscious influences on our thinking

and behaviour caused by different cues or stimuli, for example images.
Emotional priming is the tendency for cues or stimuli to influence how we
feel emotionally and the impact this can have on decision-making.
Endowment effect (linked to Loss aversion): the tendency to place a

higher value on objects we own and that are in our possession.
Framing: decisions and preferences are influenced by how information

is presented to us, even when the choices before us ultimately lead to the
same outcome — for example, if a food item is presented as “10% fat” or
“90% fat-free”. The product is the same, but consumer responses can be
very different.
Halo effect: positive perceptions of an object can significantly influence

our perception of adjacent objects. This can be useful for introducing new
products by embedding them in existing ecosystems, or in partnership
with beloved brands.
IKEA effect: consumers often place a disproportionately high value on

products they created or had a role in creating.
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Loss aversion (linked to endowment effect): we overvalue and hate

losing what we already have. Typically a loss hurts twice as much as
a gain feels good. This bias explains the power of a free trial. People
may also take huge, sometimes irrational risks, in order to keep possession
of something.
Mental accounting: people carry around different running money tabs

in their heads. We compartmentalise income and spend from different
mental accounts. We are also more or less reckless with money depending
on where it has come from.
Mere exposure effect: repeated exposure to something leads to a more

positive feeling about it. In particular, increasing familiarity can help to
build trust in a logo, brand, or institution.
Paradox of choice: we think more choice is better, but there can be

problems with excessive choice. Decisions become less likely (choice
paralysis) and choice satisfaction may drop. This can be addressed
by providing a tool or a catalogue to help shoppers avoid choice and
information overload.
Power of free: the tendency to overvalue free products. The demand for
a product is significantly greater at a price of exactly zero compared to a
price even slightly greater than zero. Power of free is a source of irrational
excitement that can be highly persuasive in the moment.
Power of now (or Present bias): the tendency to focus on today rather
than think about what tomorrow might bring. We discount the future in
favour of today. More specifically, it is the human tendency to put more
value on rewards that are available now than rewards in the future.
Power of now is also known as present bias.
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97 APPENDIX
Pratfall effect: the tendency for interpersonal appeal to change after

an individual makes a mistake, depending on the individual’s perceived
competence. The pratfall effect explains why people we hold in high
esteem seem even more sympathetic if/when they make a mistake.
Likewise, when we see someone we don’t hold in high esteem make a
mistake, we appreciate them even less. The pratfall effect extends to
brands that may admit to mistakes or flaws from time to time.
Prospect theory: the tendency to choose options with a higher

probability of a positive outcome, even if the potential rewards are
lower. Conversely, we tend to avoid options with a higher probability of a
negative outcome, even if the potential loss is smaller.
Scarcity bias: people place a higher value on an object that is scarce and
a lower value on those that are abundant. Scarcity is a mental shortcut
that assigns a value to an item based on how rare or limited it is. The
more difficult an item is to acquire, the more value that item has. These
perceptions of scarcity can lead to irrational consumer behaviour.
Social proof: the tendency to follow the opinion, advice, and behaviour
of others in one’s own decision-making. The recommendations and
comments of others can be very persuasive.
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98 APPENDIX
Thanks for making it this far!
As a reward, here’s some bonus content
Let’s get ready to bundle (or unbundle)

Here, we explore the benefits that bundling (or unbundling)
can bring to consumers and businesses alike.
Let’s get ready to bundle (or unbundle)
Bundling and unbundling of products and services continues to be

a hot topic in marketing. In fact, we’re not immune ourselves, initially
bundling this section into Chapter 5 before deciding to unbundle it as an
appendix, because, unlike the other studies represented here, we haven’t
conducted any new primary research on the topic. Still, we thought there
were some interesting observations we could share...
Bundling involves combining multiple products or services into a single

packaged offering, often including a discount. Think fast-food meal
deals where you can add a drink and a side for less than the cost of
buying all three items separately. That’s a bundle. Unbundling consists
of breaking up packages of products and services into their separate
constituents and selling them individually. In recent memory, unbundling
has transformed industries as varied as music, telecoms, and TV.
This phase of our research primarily used literature review, supplemented

by an audit of leading retailers to understand how they apply bundling
in the real world. According to published work on the subject, there are
four main types of bundles, each conferring different levels of benefit to
consumers and businesses:
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99 APPENDIX
FIGURE 50
We grouped different types of bundling into

Premium
four categories
Streaming
Premium Premium
Streaming Premium Streaming
Streaming
Premium
Delivery
Premium Premium
Delivery Premium Delivery
Delivery
Pure bundling: Mixed bundling: Partial mixed bundling: Tying:

you can’t buy individual the individual components the bundle is offered, along the purchase of item A
goods at individual prices. are also available with one of the bundled is tied to buying item B,
Often invisible, we don’t for purchase individually. items separately, but not although item B might be
realise there was a bundle For example, this can the other. sold separately (partial
until the product gets happen with meal deals at bundling) or not (pure
unbundled. For example, fast-food restaurants. bundle).
this can happen with
airline travel.
Bundles of behaviour
Our literature review revealed nine behavioural science principles
that are particularly relevant when it comes to developing bundling
and unbundling strategies.
IKEA effect: consumers often place a disproportionately high value

on products they created or had a role in creating. Customised or
personalised bundles are likely to be valued more and returned less.
Loss aversion: people are more motivated by avoiding a loss than by

acquiring a gain of equal value.
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100 APPENDIX
Prospect theory: people tend to choose options with a higher

probability of a positive outcome, even if the potential rewards are
lower. Conversely, they avoid options with a higher probability of a
negative outcome, even if the potential loss is smaller. This is often
applied by showing the cost of a bundle as a single figure, but itemising
individual savings.
Cognitive ease: people prefer to receive information in a way that

reduces mental effort and allows them to make intuitive decisions. Default
bundles and a single contract for multiple services can reduce hassle and
increase cognitive ease.
Framing: decisions and preferences are influenced by how information is

presented to us, even when the choices before us ultimately lead to
the same outcome — for example, if a food item is presented as “10% fat”
or “90% fat-free”. The product is the same, but consumer responses can
be very different.
Power of free: people are particularly drawn to things that are free or offer
a substantial saving. We often overvalue deals containing a free item.
Mental accounting: people tend to think about spending in terms of

separate categories or budgets. Bundling items from complementary
categories can be a way to reduce cognitive strain.
Diversification bias: this bias describes our tendency to want more

variety when bundling multiple decisions into one. Infrequent grocery
shoppers who visit the supermarket with long lists tend to buy a wider
variety of items.
Halo effect: positive perceptions of an object can significantly influence

our perception of adjacent objects. This can be useful for introducing new
products by embedding them in existing ecosystems, or in partnership
with beloved brands.
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101 APPENDIX
Bundling in the messy middle

For shoppers exploring an unfamiliar category, bundles can answer
several cognitive needs. A well-constructed bundle can inspire
confidence, evoke feelings of control, and fend off anxieties associated
with loss aversion and mental accounting. Unbundling can also appeal
during exploration if it offers an innovative way to access the category,
e.g. only paying for what you need.
Bundles can also be an effective bridge between exploration and

evaluation, by leveraging diversification bias and reducing the perceived
risk of a purchase. Cross-selling and upselling are often successfully
employed once a shopper has entered evaluation mode, close to the
point of purchase. But if used inappropriately these tactics can confuse
consumers, causing them to loop back into exploration to assess offers
from other brands and retailers.
Finally, both bundling and unbundling contribute to post-purchase

experience, as they can encourage consumers to shortcut the messy
middle with repeat purchases.
CONTENTS
102 APPENDIX
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Acknowledgments
This work was influenced by many, and we thank them for their advice,
support and contributions.
From Google: Celena Baggio, Gerald Breatnach, Laura Smith-Roberts,

Zarina de Ruiter, Selina Rennie, Liz Cracknell, Justine L’Estrange, Nisha
Mathews, Carla Puttini, Rachael Powell, Tommy Howell, Ruth Ballett,
Sarah Bradley, Sophie Florian, Raffaella Stratta, Alanna Petroff, Lucile
Le Goallec, Bénédicte Ibert, Florence Corbasson, Asia Borowska, and
Phil Wilson.
From outside Google: Andy Goll, Sam Kelly, Anais Le Joncour, and
Veronica Beecham from The Behavioural Architects. Alicia Birr, Pilar
McCrory Huertas, Alistair Rennie, Lucy Sinclair, and Philip Walford.
Our creative agency partner, Redwood BBDO.
CONTENTS
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Decoding Decisions Marketing in The Messy Middle DclfruV

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Marketing in

the messy middle

On each page we’ve added buttons that

Head of Market Insights EMEA, Google

Market Insights EMEA, Google

Market Insights EMEA, Google

Market Insights EMEA, Google

Market Insights EMEA, Google

Market Insights EMEA, Google

The Behavioural Architects

Founder, The Behavioural Architects

Associate Director, The Behavioural Architects

In 2020 we published a piece of research called Decoding Decisions:

Since publication, we’ve received a lot of encouraging feedback from

To answer these questions — and more — we set about simulating

Search Content Point of sale

As in our original research, our insights are derived from a combination

Revisiting the messy middle

The messy middle is a complicated place. An environment of abundant

We codified the messy middle as two looping mindsets: exploration and

We identified a set of mental shortcuts and rules of thumb that people

Inspired by our research, we ultimately recommended three key

New developments in the messy middle

In times of economic uncertainty, consumers are forced to do more with

A new generation of advertising tools and solutions, an increasing

In our original report we introduced the notion of “supercharging”,

The exploration and evaluation loops of the messy middle are

The evolution of information foraging

Anthropologists have applied the idea of “information foraging”

From optimal foraging theory …

The information-foraging techniques we rely on have to account for a

An explosion in product choice and

Confidence turns out to be a crucial factor in successfully navigating

The evolution of search behaviours

In addition to their increasing abundance, information patches in the

The internet is going from a place where

In the U.K., search interest for queries containing “cheap” and

In the U.K., popular search queries related to the term

2019 wedding guest dresses

princess wedding dress

wedding dress london

2022 wedding guest outfits for over 50s

floaty dress for wedding guest

long sleeve dress for wedding guest

teal dress for wedding

Secondly, Search can help us understand how a category is

In the apparel category in the U.K., queries related to the term

Fashion 2017 sustainable clothing

Brands start 2018 sustainable clothing

sustainable clothing brands

[leading sportswear brand] sustainability

Diverse 2021 sustainable brands

sustainable dresses [leading clothing brand]

More specific 2022 sustainable development goals

best sustainable clothing brands

Shifting trends in Google Search show

In fact, the pandemic inspired short-term fluctuations in several

banana bread salmon

can you freeze...

During the COVID-19 pandemic, U.K. search interest for

These examples demonstrate that consumer demand, as expressed

From foraging to searching

here’s value in simply showing up when shoppers